Friday night saw the Arlington Cardinals in town to take on St. Mary’s. Both Cardinal teams came into this one with records of 2-0. However, St. Mary’s would prove far superior, taking this one 52-0. The game ended quickly into the second half as St. Mary’s ends their third straight game early. Friday saw domination as St. Mary’s thrashes Arlington with Lebrun being uncontainable yet again.
1st Quarter
St. Mary’s would receive the opening kick. The Cards would start on their own 25 yard line and bring the ball up only eight yards before finding themselves in a 4th and two situation. The offense stayed on the field despite it being 4th down, which proved to be a good decision. Jaxon Baumberger pitched the ball to Lincoln Lebrun who found a cut-back lane and ran 67 yards for a touchdown. Baumberger would hand off to Trimmier Hanson for the two-point conversion making it 8-0 just one minute into the game. Arlington started their opening drive at their own 29, where Josh Liebl would find his way into the backfield for a tackle-for-loss to set the away Cardinals back to a 2nd and 16. Arlington’s drive would amount to nothing and they would punt the ball away to Hanson.
After about a 20-yard punt return, St. Mary’s would be starting at Arlington’s 40 yard line. Pano Skliris would take a handoff from Hanson 18 yards, followed by a first down from Lebrun. The Cardinals got to the 11-yard line as Hanson took a QB power in to the end zone for the score. As soon as you could blink, Baumberger this time took a handoff in for the two-point, 16-0 early. Another drive went backwards for Arlington as they were forced to punt it away. Although the Cardinals ended up backed up deep, Lebrun would find room to cap off the drive with a 57 yard touchdown. Baumberger would hand off to Kade Lutt for the two-point, 24-0 St Mary’s. Arlington would finally hold St. Mary’s for a three-and-out and would take us to the 2nd quarter.
2nd Quarter
Although Arlington forced the turnover-on-downs, they had to punt again. After a Cardinal first down, Skliris would weave through traffic for a 40-yard touchdown making it 30-0. The two-point was no good on a Hanson run. Arlington would put together a decent drive, however the quarterback for the visiting Cardinals would find a wide-open Jake Heinitz for a St. Mary’s interception. St. Mary’s flew down the field as Lutt caught a pass from Hanson for a 23 yard gain, setting up St Mary’s first-and-goal. Hanson rolled out on the next play and found Logan Bauer in the end zone for the touchdown. Hanson would throw again, this time to Heinitz, for the two-point conversion making the score 38-0. Arlington had a huge play on the next drive bringing the ball to the edge of the red zone.
Bauer would wrap up Arlington’s running back in the backfield as Skliris would come up and knock the ball free. Liebl fell on the ball for St. Mary’s making for another Arlington no-yield drive. Lebrun would take a handoff from Hanson for a 52-yard gain which would set up a Lutt touchdown rush two plays later. St. Mary’s dug into their bag of tricks as Lebrun took a normal-looking toss play from Baumberger, but this time he threw it to Hanson in the end zone for the two-point. St. Mary’s would take a 46-0 lead going into the half.
2nd Half
Due to a mishap on Arlington’s part at the pregame coinflip, St. Mary’s would start with the ball. Colter Griffin would take a handoff from Jacob Geraets 35 yards. Geraets would take a designed QB run 20 yards down to the 10 before calling his own number again for the 10 yard touchdown. That would put the lead to 52-0, and that would end the ballgame.
Stats
After St. Mary’s thrashes Arlington, we take a look at some absurd numbers. St. Mary’s had 430 total yards of offense compared to Arlington’s 45. Nearly multiplying Arlington’s yard total by 10. It was easy to see from the start that one team had the clear upper-hand.
Lebrun had six carriers for 197 yards and two touchdowns along with a reception for 11 yards. He also threw a two-point conversion. Hanson finished with six carries for 39 yards, six completions for 54 yards, scored a touchdown by air and on the ground, along with catching one, throwing two, and running for one in two-point conversions. Skliris had two carries for 58 yards and a touchdown. Lutt finished with two carries for seven yards and a touchdown, also having a catch for 23 yards. Geraets had three carries for 29 yards and a touchdown, with C. Griffin adding a carry for 35 yards. Heinitz had two catches for 14 yards, and Baumberger added a catch for eight yards.
Defensively, Geraets led with 4.5 tackles. Lutt and Lebrun each had 3.5 tackles as well. Liebl tallied three tackles and a fumble recovery. Heinitz had 1.5 tackles with an interception to boot. Skliris had one tackle along with a forced fumble. Again, this Cardinals defense only gave up 45 yards to Arlington.
Closing
Coach Ross Flemmer reached out after the game to talk about what he saw from his team.
“The guys played well tonight. Defensively they shut down the run and defended the pass well. Offensively we moved the ball well and were pretty efficient with our drives.”
After a game where St. Mary’s thrashes Arlington, the Cardinals will go on the road again next week to take on the Colman-Egan Hawks in Colman. The Hawks come into the game 0-2 and they were able to rest this week while St. Mary’s beat down Arlington. That game will of course be live right here on Big Sioux Media, starting at 7:00. If you can’t make it, tune in live under https://www.youtube.com/@BigSiouxMedia
