West Fargo Horace too much for Saints

It was a rough homecoming for the St. Mary's football team, with the Saints falling to West Fargo Horace 28-7 on Friday night at Smrekar Field.

The Hawks stifled the Saints' offense and figured out how to solve their defense to score 28 points before the Saints could finally get one back.

"One team came pretty much ready, and the other one didn't," Saints coach Toby Schweitzer said. "So I obviously was not pleased with all the effort tonight, but we can fix everything that happened here, and we can make things better going forward."

The Saints started the game with a 35-yard kickoff return and got to start their possession at the 50. They were only able to run it five yards and could not go any further, which would begin a trend all game.

"We got nothing going offensively," Saints quarterback Charles Richter said. "It was a poor game offensively."

The Hawks were stopped for a short gain on the punt return, but on the first play from scrimmage, Horace wide receiver Aiden Green ran for 15 yards to get to the 35-yard line. Hawks quarterback Taylor Stefonowicz connected with Brett Livingston to get to St. Mary's 30-yard line, but a tackle by Charles Richter eventually ended the drive to keep the game scoreless.

It would not remain that way. On Horace's next offensive opportunity, another big pass, this time from Green to Livingston, put the Hawks back into scoring position. From the 20, the Hawks were able to run it up to the 5 and from there Ty Geray ran it in.

"They had so much speed offensively," Richter said. "Their pulling guards played really well. They pulled well and played well."

West Fargo Horace started the second quarter with the ball 30 yards away from the end zone. Stefonowicz's pass landed in the hands of its intended target, Israel Bauer, standing in the end zone to give the Hawks their second touchdown.

"We couldn't stop them," Richter said. "They're a really good team. They played fast, played physical, and they just outplayed us."

The Saints got a prime scoring opportunity shortly after. Asher Coghlan recovered a fumble to start the Saints at the 25. Richter attempted a pass to Connor Schatz in the end zone but it was incomplete and another was swatted down at the 25. The third and final passing attempt was snagged by the Hawks to end the Saints' possession.

"That's a big momentum switch, and if we could have taken that one and scored," Schweitzer said. "I think it would have changed the flavor of the game."

Then with seconds left in the second quarter, Geray ran the ball up the field, snaking through the St. Mary's defense for WFH's third touchdown of the game and Geray's second to send the Hawks into halftime up 21-0.

"We weren't good all the time, and that's one thing as a defense, you got to be good all the time," Schweitzer said. "I just don't like the big plays we gave up, we gave up two long passes and a long run. That's not typical of St Mary's defense.

"They took away our quarterback run, and so we got to work on how we counter that. They watched our quarterback, Charles Richter, make some big plays over the last couple games, and so they took him away, and we got to have a counter for that."

Richter seconded that, saying that the Hawks did a good job of putting pressure on him.

"They were blitzing well," Richter said. "They had good blitzes off the edge. They got in my face a lot. Didn't have time to read. They just put lots of pressure on me."

Neither team had much going for them in the third quarter. Both teams were scoreless in the third as the Saints' offense continued to struggle.

At the start of the final quarter of play, the Hawks started on the 30 and Reid Foell carried it up to the 15, putting Horace back in scoring position. Livingston made another exceptional catch in the end zone to give the Hawks their fourth touchdown of the game.

Schweitzer said that their team struggled with defending passing plays by West Fargo Horace because of the size of their receivers and the accuracy of Stefonowicz.

"Their quarterback was putting it right on the money," Schweitzer said. "The other thing is, if you take a look at their receivers, they're pretty good size, like 6-6, 6-7 type kids, and sometimes we had some smaller kids guarding them, so that makes it hard."

Another recovered fumble by St. Mary's, this time recovered by Jackson Barth, gave the Saints one more chance to generate a successful scoring drive and they did. Jacoby Grimm connected with Beckett Price, who ran it in to put the Saints on the board.

"It's great to get a score, get on the board, gives the kids a little bit of consolation, and makes them want to come back to work next week," Schweitzer said. "And that's what we're going to do, come back to work hard next week."

The game ended with a final score of 28-7.

"You got to give a lot of credit to that team that's a good football team," Schweitzer said. "Very well-coached. Come on the road like this and play that hard. They're definitely a force to be reckoned with."

St. Mary's will take on Minot North next Friday in Minot, and Richter says that they need to come out at a higher level if they want to bounce back after this loss.

"We got to start off better," Richter said. "You got to come out and have energy and effort right away, come out and play well."