RECAP: Glendale Remains Unbeaten With WIn Over St. Francis

The Greendale Panthers demonstrated shy so many teams are going to the spread offense in high school football in their 35-7 victory over St. Francis on Friday night. They also showed the downside of the spread offense on the goal line, and the negative effect it can have on a defense.

The Panthers opened the game showing off their quick strike offense driving 86 yards in 5 plays that started with a 50 yard pass from Chris Ridgway to Ben Ericksen, and culminated with a 26 yard touchdown pass to Ericksen and put Greendale on top 7-0.

After stopping the Mariners on their first possession, the Panthers then scored on another 26 yard TD pass from Ridgway to Ericksen, and after a 2 point conversion, led 15-0 at the end of the first quarter.

They led 21-0 at halftime, but the score could have been even more lopsided. THe Panthers had three opportunities inside the 5 yard line that were unsuccessful, with the final 4th and 1 play an incomplete fade pattern to the corner of the end zone that was intended for Ericksen.

"Teams say that you can't run the spread down on the goal line" said Greendale Head Coach Bob Stolz, "We do anyway, and if we're gonna get suffed like that, obviously we have a lot to work on because that's not our offense. We don't get stuffed inside the one, we hammer it in there and they did a great job sticking it to us." The Panthers were also stopped inside the 5 yard line early in the third quarter.

To the credit of St. Francis, their coaches and their team did not throw in the towel. On the contrary, they opened the second half with a 78 yard touchdown run by Will Frisch, a senior running back for the Mariners that racked up 238 total rushing yards on the night.

After stopping Greendale for the second time in the game at the goal line following the Frisch touchdown run, the Mariners embarked on a 23 play drive that started on their own 1 yard line, but ended at the Greendale 12 yard line when Frisch was stopped short on a 4th and 5 draw play.

On that drive, the Mariners held the ball for the remainder of the 3rd quarte. THey ran the ball 20 times, 15 of those carries going to Frisch who accounted for all 8 first downs on the drive. St. Francis had all the momentum with them at that point in the game, but ran a questionable pass play on 3rd and 5 from the Greendale 15 yard line which landed incomplete. 4th and 5 proved too much to overcome on the ground and St. Francis turned the ball over on downs.

Greendale put the Mariners away after that driving another 88 yards in 8 plays for a 28-7 lead. Ridgway to Erickson finished the drive with a 15 yard pass, and later the Panthers added a finishing touchdown by Ridgway.

In the end, Greendale's offense provided too much firepower for the Mariners to handle. Ridgway was 13 of 25 for 298 yards passing, and his favorite target Ericksen had "the game of his life" according to Coach Stoltz, finishing with a school record 234 yards on 10 catches with 3 touchdowns.

Greendale takes their perfect record to Cudahy next week while St. Francis is at home against Brown Deer.