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Last Friday proved to be a great Homecoming for the Wildcat football team. The Wildcat rushed for 354 yards and five different players scored touchdowns as they crushed the North St. Paul Polars 41-8 in front of over 1,000 standing room only fans. Donald Karpenko led the way on the ground with 112 yards on 12 carries and quarterback Kaiden Melquist had seven carries for 75 yards. Six Wildcats rushed for 30 or more yards in the game.

After holding the Polar to three and out on the first drive of the game and after a 14-yard punt, the Wildcats took over at the Polar 42. Three plays later, Logan Senske outleaped his shorter opponent and hauled in the Wildcats’ only pass of the game at the ten-yard line. On the next play, Carter Anderson headed up the middle through a huge hole, cut left, and ran into the end zone for a touchdown. Hayden Trupe’s extra point made it 7-0 with 8:14 left in the first quarter. North St. Paul actually moved the ball well on their next drive, but Fisher Jorgenson forced and recovered a fumble at the Wildcat 39, and the Wildcat offense was again in business. A run for a first down by Karpenko and two long runs by Melquist gave the Wildcats first and goal at the seven. On the next play, Melquist ran it up the middle and dove over the goal line for a touchdown, and the Wildcats led 14-0. After a three and out by the Polars and another punt, the Wildcats started at their own 36-yard line. Runs for first downs by Karpenko, Melquist and Anderson, along with an offsides penalty, moved the ball down to the five. Melquist headed up the middle and was grabbed as he crossed the goal line to make it 21-0. In keeping with a familiar pattern, the Wildcats forced yet another three and out and ended up with great field position. Two nine-yard runs by Karpenko moved the ball to the 25. Melquist rolled right and, at the last possible second, pitched the ball to Gus Strub. Strub made some nifty moves and was finally dragged down at the two-yard line. Strub plowed into the end zone on the next play, and the Wildcats led 27-0 with 3:30 left in the first half.

The Wildcats added two more touchdowns in the second half. One came on a two-yard run by Karpenko, and the other came on a 32-yard run by Fisher Jorgenson on his only carry of the game. North St. Paul scored a touchdown and converted the two-pointer in the fourth quarter to make the final score 41-8.

Wildcat head coach Ryan Anderson said “It comes down to being consistent. It doesn’t matter who your opponent is, you’ve got to go out there and execute. We did that on Friday and the scoreboard reflected it. Defensively, Logan Senske and Brannick Malchow each had nine tackles, which is a pretty impressive game. Fisher Jorgenson forced a fumble and recovered it himself. As a whole, the defense really bought in to doing their job. What makes football a beautiful, challenging sport is that you’ve got to get eleven guys on the same page and if they’re not, you’re going to be in trouble. We struggled with that in our first couple of weeks and in these last few weeks we have really started to put it together. Everybody did their job on Friday and when you do that, you’re going to find some success. Offensively, we had several guys do a lot of nice things. It was nice to see all of those guys being successful. We only threw the ball one time, but we were one for one.”

Football Notes

The Wildcats (2-3) will head to Princeton High School to take on the Princeton Tigers (0-5) tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Anderson said “Princeton is going to hit you and play physical. They’ve got a couple of guys on offense and defense that just have motors and they just go, go, go. To the casual observer out there, they might get a little caught up on their win-loss record. But quite honestly, they are one of the best 0-5 teams in the state. They play probably five of the top ten teams in the state this year and have had a buzzsaw of a schedule. They are a solid team. They will be ready for us, and we’ve got to make sure we are ready for them. If we continue to keep getting better like we have been, I think it will be a very competitive and very fun game.”

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