RIB LAKE 80, WINTER-BIRCHWOOD 14 - Redmen roll with the punches, put up 80 in win

Another round of adversity hit the Rib Lake football team with three starters seeing their seasons ended by injury following a loss to Phillips.

The response in the first game after that couldn’t have been any better.

The Redmen forced five turnovers and held Winter-Birchwood to 76 total yards on defense and they could not be stopped by the Warcats defense in an 80-14 rout Friday in a Northwood Conference crossover.

Talon Scheithauer, Ethan Cook and Grant Beard each scored three touchdowns with Scheithauer actually accounting for five when you include his two touchdown passes. The Redmen rolled up 545 yards of total offense and were equally effective running and throwing the ball.

While the Warcats certainly are far from the strongest opponent the Redmen will see this year, the execution was impressive, all things considered.

“I give a lot of credit to the kids because we have a lot of kids that are playing out of position now,” Rib Lake head coach Austin Edwards said. “We have kids that have moved positions three different times this season. We’re on our third offensive scheme now that we’ve had to put in.

“I’m pleased with how everyone has responded. I can’t say enough good things about our guys and the attitudes and how we’ve responded to so much adversity this year.”

The win put Rib Lake at 2-2 in the conference standings and 2-3 overall and still well within playoff potential with three games remaining.

With running backs Slade Scheithauer and Lucas Cook and guard Brevin Brahmer all now out, the Redmen spent the week prior to the game testing offensive options. While it was tough to move Ethan Cook out of his guard position to running back, the move paid off with the senior co-captain gaining 170 yards on 10 carries, nearly matching Scheithauer’s 180 yards on the same number of carries.

Keaton Schmidtfranz moved seamlessly into the center spot, while Lawson Carlson and George Troiber and the new guards going forward. The new tweak offensively was Scheithauer taking snaps out of the shotgun rather than directly under center.

“When you lose your two starting running backs and one of your better offensive linemen, all of a sudden your quarterback has to become a bigger runner,” Edwards said. “We just thought moving Talon to the shotgun would be good because he would be able to get a full head of steam, running through the middle where he acts like another running back instead of just a quarterback who turns to hand off or turns and doesn’t have any momentum going toward the line of scrimmage.”

Scheithauer got the scoring barrage started Friday with an 87-yard touchdown run on Rib Lake’s third play from scrimmage. The Redmen got the ball on a Ty Niemi interception. After foiling a fake punt by the Warcats, Rib Lake needed just two plays to go 45 yards and take a 14-0 lead. The Redmen got 23 on a quick pass to Josiah Mann, who lateraled the ball to Cook who got all of the yardage on the play. Scheithauer then found Mann for a 22-yard touchdown on a deep fade to the right side of the end zone and the sophomore’s first varsity touchdown.

The Redmen got another fourth-down stop and Cook’s 53-yard touchdown run made it 22-0 with 3:51 left in the first quarter. Cook shot through a hole and the middle and bounced the run out to the right sideline, easily outrunning the remaining Warcat defenders.

“Our hands were kind of forced putting him back there,” Edwards said. “Watching him work all week in practice, it was like, maybe we should’ve had this guy here all along. He runs hard, he’s very forward in his running, there’s not a whole lot of lateral movement as he goes. It’s downhill and he’s usually seeking out contact when he runs, which is a good thing to do when you’re a powerful back like that.”

Winter-Birchwood got on the boards with its first touchdown, but Rib Lake responded with a 59-yard drive that ended with a 13-yard pass from Scheithauer to Beard, who faked a block and then sneaked out the right side to get open. The score made it 30-8.

Cook and Briley Leonhard recovered fumbles around an interception thrown by Scheithauer. Rib Lake took over on Winter-Birchwood’s 30 after Leonhard’s recovery and turned that into a 7-yard scoring run by Scheithauer despite two 10yard penalties on the drive.

Mann intercepted a pass and brought it back 35 yards to the eight. From there, Scheithauer found Beard for another touchdown. Scheithauer’s interception set up his 9-yard touchdown run that made it 52-8 with 1:43 still left in the first half.

Cook scored on a 14-yard run early in the third, which was followed by a defensive touchdown by Winter-Birchwood as it recovered an errant Rib Lake snap in the end zone to make it 5814.

But Rib Lake got three more scores from there, starting with Beard’s 4-yard reception from Niemi, who completed four of six passes in some second-half duty at quarterback.

Beard caught four passes for 45 yards. Mann caught five for 86 yards.

“It would be nice to be able to become more than just a team that hands off and goes to Lucas, Talon and Slade all the time,” Edwards said. “We made it an important thing. We have some other guys, let’s get them involved. Grant is a budding star. He’s everything you want in a tight end. He knows the position. He’s smooth with his hands. He catches just about anything you throw up to him. He’s a good route runner, he’s a big body. Josiah is another one. We put an emphasis this week in saying we have a 6-3 wide receiver out here who also has really good hands. Let’s make sure that we can find ways to get him the ball.”

Cook spun out of a tackle to record his second 53-yard touchdown run of the game and the final score came with 2:01 left when Niemi hit Zondlo for a 12-yard score and the first touchdown for the senior.

Next up for Rib Lake is a short trip up Hwy 13 to face Prentice at 7 p.m. in the Buccaneers’ homecoming game. Prentice is 0-4 in the conference standings and 1-4 overall.