WELLS – The Wells football team opened the first half Friday night by recovering a fumble that led to a touchdown. The Warriors ended the half scoring in the same fashion.
Things weren’t much better for the Poland Knights in between.
Wells turned two turnovers into scores and scored on five of six possessions in the first half to take a 35-6 lead at halftime. The Warriors never looked back in a 64-6 victory.
Nick Laude rushed for 111 yards on 12 carries and scored four touchdowns as the Warrior rushing attack totalled 411 yards. The Knights finished with minus-11 yards on the ground.
“We’ve been known to run the ball here at Wells,” said Warrior coach Tim Roche. “So we’ve just continued with that. I like that we finally clicked offensively.”
The Warriors scored on three straight possessions, taking advantage of fine field position. With the exception of one possession when it was 7-0, Poland couldn’t slow down the Warriors or change the momentum.
“The field position just killed us,” said Poland coach Rick Kramer. “We were starting from our 7 or 9. We’d punt the ball. It would be a short punt or a nice return. You can’t win when they have short drives.”
Disaster struck for Poland on its second play from scrimmage. A fumble on an option play was recovered by Laude at the 36. Wells needed just four plays to make it 7-0 on a Ryan Fenderson quarterback keeper from the 9.
Poland’s only sustained drive of the game came on its third possession. After Wells failed to take advantage of excellent field position, Poland moved the ball and kept a drive going thanks to a 21-yard pass from Joe Douglass to Chad Wesleigh on fourth-and-18. Hunter Travers took it up the middle from the 15 with 2:11 left in the quarter.
The Knights offense produced little more. Poland managed 77 total yards in the first half, 75 of them coming on that one drive.
“The only part that beat us on drives was our own guys,” said Kramer. “We came out and did what we set out to do. We tried to go back to it, and the kids decided not to do what they’re supposed to do. They avoided the rules and said to themselves, I’m going to try to do things a different way.'”
Wells made it 14-6 before the quarter ended. The Warriors got its running game going and a 9-yard run on a sweep by Laude came in the closing seconds.
Wells rolled from there.
. Laude scored on a 37-yard run with 8:47 left. Then Max Sheing scored from the 2 on a three-play, 33-yard drive. After a Poland fumble at the 8, Wells converted when Laude walked in untouched with 3:20 left in the half.
The Warriors got another score from Laude in the third and rushing touchdowns from Justin Vigeant, Steve Beaulieu and Zack Obermeier in the second half.
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