Priest River runs over Medical Lake 57-10

Medical Lake head coach Mo Owen’s option offense is designed to confuse the opponent.

He and his team got some of their own medicine last Friday during a 57-10 thrashing by the ground-pounding Priest River Spartans in the Cardinals’ home opening football game played at Holliday Field.

When looking at film of Priest River, Owen said the coaching staff saw a team that passed 70 percent of the time.

“They came out in the same formations but they didn’t use them (the pass) much,” Owen said. They started to run the ball and we didn’t have an answer for it.”

And boy did the Intermountain League team run, piling up 480 net yards on 46 carries for an average of 10.4 yards per play. The Spartans gained just 15 yards through the air.

Individually, Priest River’s Tommy Anselmo had 219 yards on 17 carries and four touchdowns, while Anthony Storro added 96 more on 17 carries and scored once as the Spartans (1-1) racked up 495 total yards.

Things went well for Medical Lake in the first two quarters. The Spartans led 6-3 after 12 minutes with Anselmo scoring his first touchdown with 7 minutes, 20 seconds remaining in the quarter. The Cards’ Ty Masteller cut into the margin with a 30-yard field goal with three minutes to go in the opening stanza.

The second quarter was explosive as the teams scored 21 points in just 1:54.

Anselmo put his team ahead 12-6 on a 13-yard run with 9:09 to play in the half. It took Medical Lake just over a minute to close the gap with Masteller’s 73-yard scoring run as the Cards (0-2) trailed 20-10 at the half.

“He played a good game, he runs hard,” Owen said of Masteller. “He probably made the biggest improvement from the first to second game.”

The Spartans charged out of the locker room following halftime as Storro scored on a 15-yard run with 7:15 to play in the third quarter. Anselmo’s final touchdown made it 36-10 at the 4:48 mark before he went to the bench.

Brother, Robbie Anselmo started a disastrous fourth quarter for Medical Lake where the Spartans piled on 21 more points with his 14-yard run 2:19 into the final quarter. Anselmo’s score was followed by Riley Dement at the 6:09 mark whose TD covered 32-yards. Noah Jamison capped it on his 16-yard run with 2:32 to play.

Injuries depleted an already thin roster and had Owen and his staff scrambling to fill positions. The Cardinals dressed just 22 players for the game but of those, only a handful had a quarter of eligibility left after having played a junior varsity game earlier in the week. “We just didn’t have a whole lot of bodies,” Owen said.

“We played a corner (back) at safety, a D (defensive) end at safety,” he added. “We were just trying to fill holes.”

Among those were Dylan Vercoe, normally a wide receiver who was shuttled into the quarterback spot in an effort to keep starting quarterback Kyle Thompson healthy with the start of Northeast A League play ahead.

“Dylan also gave tremendous effort,” Owen said. “Even when the game was 40-10 he was out there and wasn’t giving up for anything.”

The Cardinals host Freeman (2-0) Friday at 7 p.m. The Scotties’ two wins have come by shutout and against Idaho teams. They topped Timberlake of Spirit Lake 32-0 and dealt Bonners Ferry a 41-0 walloping.

“Freeman looks better than I’ve seen them look in along time,” Owen said. ”They’ve got some kids over there.”

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].