SOUTH RIDGE— It seemed nothing fell into place for the Timberwolves in their varsity football opener here last Friday. The young Wolves squad fell behind and never recovered as the Panthers cruised to a 48-6 win in the first contest of a six-game season.
“This wasn’t the start to our season that I was expecting,” said Head Coach Cory Lassi, now in his third season on the sidelines for Ely. “Coming into the season and adding some new faces to our team who hadn’t played for a couple of years, I was hoping we would come out and be more competitive than we were. We looked somewhat timid and like we only had two weeks of practice, like we did. We missed executing on a lot of things.”
With 25 players in grades 9-12 hitting the practice field late last month, the team actually has more depth this year than in 2019. But the squad includes many inexperienced players and that fact, along with the limited practice time in this pandemic-shortened season, combined for a rocky start.
The game remained close in the opening stanza as the Timberwolves were down just 6-0 as the first quarter ended. “We were right where we wanted to be,” Lassi said at that point. “But they had two or three big plays in the second quarter that broke the game open.”
The Panthers took a 26-0 lead into the locker room at halftime. Three more South Ridge touchdowns in the third quarter put the Wolves in a deep hole.
The Timberwolves’ only score against South Ridge came late in the fourth quarter as running back Jason Kerntz scampered 43 yards into the end zone with 7:49 remaining. He had 97 yards on 19 carries for the night.
Eddie Prijatel contributed with 24 yards on eight rushes, while quarterback Mason Davis scrambled for six yards on three attempts. Davis completed two of five passes to Harry Simons for 12 yards.
Davis led the team in tackles with six. Kerntz had five tackles and four other players contributed four tackles each.
The Panthers dominated with 454 yards from scrimmage and 20 first downs compared to nine for Ely. The Timberwolves also turned the ball over three times on the night.
“I challenged the guys in practice this week to be the one who steps up when things start to snowball,” Lassi said. “There has to be that leadership to make a big play and regain the momentum. We didn’t have that in our first game. We had guys in position to make big plays but just didn’t execute.”
The Wolves were hoping to put their season opener behind them as they prepared to host Cook County Wednesday night after the Timberjay’s presstime. The Timberwolves will host Northeast Range on Friday, Oct. 30.