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Wildcat running back Carson Langevin scored the first and last touchdowns in the Wildcat football game at Zimmerman last Friday night.  But those were the only points for the Wildcats  as the Thunder scored 40 points in between and crushed the Wildcats 40-13.  Junior quarterback Thomas McEachern was a one-man wrecking crew for Zimmerman, piling up over 300 yards of total offense and either throwing or running for all five Thunder touchdowns.

The Wildcats started the game’s opening drive at their own 27-yard line.  After getting one first down at the Wildcat 39, Langevin took a pitch left and ran around end for 14 yards, getting knocked out of bounds at the Thunder 47.  Four plays later, from the Zimmerman 34, Langevin took a handoff to the left, darted through a hole on the left side of the line created by Chuck Gilman completely shutting down the Zimmerman linebacker on the end of the line and raced untouched to the left front corner of the end zone for a touchdown.  Brycen Morley kicked the extra point, and the Wildcats led 7-0.

The Wildcat had eight possessions between their two scoring drives, and they went as follows:  punt (three and out), fumble, punt (three and out), punt, end of half, fumble, punt, turnover on downs.  Meanwhile, the Zimmerman offense made their way up and down the field, almost at will.  Ater the Wildcats held the Thunder to three and out on their first drive of the game, Zimmerman scored on seven straight possessions  McEachern scored on runs of three yards, 11 yards and 45 yards.  He threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to Noah Schmit and a 26-yard touchdown pass to Joe Larson.  And when the Wildcat defense did stop the Thunder deep in Wildcat territory a couple of times in the third quarter, the Thunder kicked field goals of 34 and 32 yards.  Lane Johnson kicked the first field goal, and Cole Campbell kicked the second one.

The Wildcats’ other touchdown came late in the fourth quarter.  On first down from the Thunder 43, Langevin took a handoff to the left.  In a play that looked exactly the same as Langevin’s first quarter touchdown run, pulling right guard Ayden Frederickson created a large hole by blocking the Zimmerman linebacker on the end of the line.  Langevin ran through the hole and tore down the left sideline before he was bumped out of bounds at the eight-yard line.  Two plays later, Langevin scored from the three to make the final score Zimmerman 40, Chisago Lakes 13.

Langevin led the Wildcats with 14 carries for 138 yards and two touchdowns.  “Carson had himself a nice game,” said Wildcat head coach Ryan Anderson. “He has picked up where he left off last year and it’s fun to watch.  He can be dangerous with the ball in his hands and is a guy other teams need to be aware of.”  For the Thunder, quarterback McEachern was responsible for 310 of their 439 yards of total offense.  He was 10 for 12 passing for 177 yards and two touchdowns.  He also had 14 carries for 133 yards and three touchdowns.  Anderson said “McEachern is a good athlete and he played a very nice game against us. And since he is just a junior, they still have him for one more year.”

Anderson continued, “Zimmerman is a well-coached, tough team and they were ready for us.  Not to take anything away from them, but we might have played our worst three quarters of football this season.  We did not put our best foot forward in any phase of the game.  Special teams didn’t get a ton of opportunities, but we weren’t our best on kickoff returns.  At the end of the day, my job is to get the team ready and we didn’t look like we were ready to go.”

Football Notes

The Wildcats (3-2) will host the undefeated Princeton Panthers (5-0) tomorrow at 7 p.m. at Chisago Lakes High School.  The Panthers have defeated their opponents by an average score of 41-13 through the first five games.  “On defense, they like to get into it and play fast,” said Anderson.  “Those are the types of games we excel in.  Hopefully we get after it on Friday night, and if we do that, things will go much differently than what we saw last Friday.”

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