08/24/2007

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Suttons Bay's Eric Hernandez (10) is brought down by TC St. Francis defenders. Hernandez gained 220 yards and scored two touchdowns Thursday.

Speedy Suttons Bay runs past St. Francis

BY JEFF PEEK

jpeek@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Suttons Bay's Anthony Stewart (22) ran for 84 yards Thursday, helping the Norsemen to a 38-20 victory over St. Francis.

TRAVERSE CITY — So much for all the talk about what Suttons Bay lost to graduation.

The Norsemen still have plenty of quality football players on their roster. Traverse City St. Francis can attest to that.

Suttons Bay racked up 471 yards of offense — not including two long touchdown runs that were nullified by penalties — and cruised to a 38-20 victory over the host Gladiators in the season opener at Thirlby Field.

"You don't run for 400 yards unless you can block up front,” said St. Francis head coach Josh Sellers. "And that was supposed to be their weakness.”

The Norsemen racked up 356 yards on the ground. Eric Hernandez led the way with 220 yards on 22 carries. His longest runs both ended in touchdowns.

Anthony Stewart added 84 yards on 15 carries. He scored once, on a 32-yard run with 1:53 left, and also had a 69-yard TD run wiped out by an illegal shift.

Those numbers are even more impressive considering Suttons Bay came into the game with only two experienced offensive linemen.

That didn't seem to matter.

"We still have a lot of great guys on this team,” Hernandez said. "The credit goes to the offensive line. They did a great job.”

Suttons Bay made its biggest mistake just three plays into the game, when the Gladiators' Clark Gingras picked off a screen pass and scampered 37 yards for a touchdown.

But the Norsemen only needed 21 seconds to get it back. On the first play after kickoff, Hernandez took a pitch and scampered down the left sideline for an 87-yard TD.

Hernandez gobbled up half of his yards solely on pitches.

"We talked about going outside to open things up,” Hernandez said. "We thought it would work.”

Suttons Bay head coach Joe Trudeau said the early success of that play set the tone.

"We ran it three or four times in a row,” he said. "I said, 'Guys, I'm going to keep calling that until they stop it.' We have good speed; we wanted to take advantage of it.”

The Norsemen came out with two receivers split wide. Sellers said that was a key.

"They had a great game plan,” he said. "They split both ends out and took our defensive backs out of position to help on the run.

"So we had two guys out there covering receivers (Suttons Bay) had no intention of throwing to.”

The Norsemen did, however, find other players to throw to. Quarterback Matt Pasch was 4-for-6 in the game for 115 yards — all to running backs. Three of those completions were practically uncontested, and two went for TDs — 26 yards to Stewart and 65 yards to Ryan Konieczka.

Pasch also had a TD pass called back by a holding penalty.

St. Francis led only once, 13-12 with 7:57 left in the second quarter, on a 2-yard run by Grant Robb after Andrew Rushlow returned a kickoff 55 yards to the Suttons Bay 27.

The Norsemen answered with a 44-yard TD run by Nicholas Porritt.

St. Francis had a chance to force a tie just before halftime, but Suttons Bay held on fourth-and-goal at the one.

The Gladiators eventually scored the equalizer on Jacob Schell's 5-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, but they never scored again. In fact, the tie lasted only 12 seconds, as Pasch connected with Stewart on a 65-yard TD pass.

Hernandez added a 43-yard TD run midway through the fourth quarter — the third one-play drive for the Norsemen.

Trudeau said his team played about as well as could be expected for the season opener.

"This is not the same team that played in the scrimmage last week,” Trudeau said of his squad.

St. Francis did its part, too, by turning the ball over four times on three fumbles and an interception.

"Suttons Bay played well, but I'm not going to give them all the credit,” Sellers said. "We killed ourselves with turnovers.

"The positive thing is they were extra-effort turnovers — trying to get more yards — but they were still turnovers.

"Suttons Bay did what I wanted us to do — play mistake-free ball. Just because people expect you to play sloppy because it's the opener doesn't mean you have to give it to them.”

Schell led St. Francis with 98 yards rushing, while Rushlow added 93 and Jack Gallagher had 60.

The Gladiators return to action on Thursday at Saginaw Nouvel Catholic Central, while Suttons Bay goes to Harbor Springs next Friday.