By FRED KRONER
St. Joseph-Ogden Football
Keaton Nolan scored three touchdowns and Brady Buss reached the end zone once – all in the first half – as St. Joseph-Ogden won its football home-opener on Friday (March 26), 28-0, over Pontiac.
“I think we saw what a week of playing varsity competition did for our kids,” SJ-O coach Shawn Skinner said. “We competed at a better level for a majority of the game as opposed to only the beginning.
“We were really well-prepared and that’s a credit to our assistant coaches and players working on details together.”
Nolan rushed for a team-high 117 yards on 18 carries. Isaiah Moore gained 48 yards on the ground on 13 totes.
Quarterback Evan Ingram completed 5 of 14 passes for 102 yards, and hooked up with Buss on a scoring strike. Buss turned his three receptions into gains of 82 yards.
“Keaton Nolan ran the ball well and played very good at outside linebacker,” Skinner said. “Our offensive line took a step in the right direction in the pass blocking game.
“Evan Ingram made very good decisions at quarterback in his second varsity start. Our offense did a great job of not turning the ball over and didn’t put our defense in a bad position.”
Both Nolan and Brock Innes caught one pass.
Moore and Jackson Rydell completed the Spartans’ scoring by adding two-point conversion plays.
Skinner said one area where his team struggled needs to be addressed.
“We had way too many penalties (nine for 95 yards) and we need to clean that up because that hurt us from a field position standpoint in the second half,” Skinner said. “It’s hard to win games when you have close to 100 yards of penalties.”
SJ-O (1-1) returns to action on Friday (April 2) at Charleston.
“Defensively Ethan Vanliew and Hayden Brazelton played very well from their safety positions and brought a nice level of physicality to that side of the ball,” Skinner said. “We need to continue to get better in all phases every week.”
