Northwood limits short-handed Flyers

NORWALK — There were opportunities, but not many. Up against longtime winner and Division V Northwood, the host St. Paul football team was facing a tall order. Between key starers out and being unable to convert the few scoring chances they had, the Flyers gave up a pair of touchdowns in each half of the 28-0 loss to the Rangers on Friday in a non-conference game at Contractors Stadium. The Flyers fell to 1-2 with the loss to the Rangers (2-1). "Overall, I'm pleased with the effort, but we just got outmanned a little bit tonight on a consistent basis," St. Paul head coach Chris Doughty said. "With an offense like that, it's a worst-case scenario. They get four or five yards a play and work the clock and get first downs. "They were able to do what we want to do on offense, but they were more efficient at it tonight than we were. We had a lot of young guys step up and get some playing time; going into the season, we didn't anticipate them playing this early in the year. But I'm proud of the effort those kids gave, but obviously we have a lot of things to work on, and we have to get healthy." Similar to last week's win over Tiffin Calvert, the Flyers spent much of the first half with poor field position and had a pair of turnovers. After stopping Northwood from scoring on a 12-play drive that went from its own 44 to a fourth-and-2 from the St. Paul 3, the Flyers took over in the shadow of their own goalposts with 5:15 left in the first quarter. But unable to get a first down, the Flyers were forced to punt, giving Northwood excellent field position at the St. Paul 36. The first play, quarterback Tyler Ousley found running back John Sawyer wide open going up the right sideline for a 34-yard gain to the 2. Two plays later, Skyler Rita pushed across from the 1-yard line for the game's first touchdown with 2:50 left in the first quarter. Rita, the 6-foot-2, 250-pound fullback, carried the ball 15 times for 53 yards and both TDs in the first half. Trailing 7-0, the Flyers took over at their own 26 and picked up big first downs on third-down plays, including a 33-yard pass from Wyatt Houser to Nate Griffin. But on a fourth-and-1 from the Northwood 15, sophomore running back Abel Couch was turned away for no gain with 9:51 left in the half. Similar to their first scoring drive, the Rangers then got a huge pass play on the first play. Ousley found Valyric Goings for 41 yards to get near midfield. Eight run plays later out of the triple option, Rita again pushed across from a yard out, and Ethan Leonard's second PAT made it 14-0 with 6:01 left in the first half. On St. Paul's next possession, another promising drive ended when Houser was intercepted by Nino Villolovos at the Northwood 20 with 3:14 left in the half. The Rangers proceeded to drive deep into St. Paul territory and had first down from the St. Paul 11. But Ousley was sacked for an 11-yard loss by Rocco Rizzo, and a holding penalty pushed them 10 yards further back as the drive fizzled on the final play of the half. "Obviously their kids stepped up and made some key plays, especially early in the game in key spots," Doughty said. "We needed to be able to punch in the touchdown there, which could have evolved the game a little differently than what did happen." Northwood scored in just four plays over 52 yards on its first possession of the second half, this time a 14-yard TD run by Rita. Leading 21-0, the punctuation for the Rangers came on a 64-yard drive that took nine plays and nearly four minutes. Ousley threw a 14-yard TD pass to DeAndre Curry with 2:16 left in the third quarter. Ethan Leonard's fourth PAT capped the scoring at 28-0. St. Paul was limited to 114 yards of total offense in the loss. Zeke Dvorak ran 10 times for 40 yards to pace the Flyers.