Football: Sandwich falls to Stillman Valley

Updated: November 12, 2011 10:02PM

Sandwich football coach Dusty Behringer addressed his teary-eyed players postgame and told them how proud he was with their season.

Then Stillman Valley coach Mike Lalor stepped over and told the Indians how impressed he was how they fought during Saturday night’s 35-6 Cardinals’ victory.

That choked up Behringer a bit and provided some validation for all the hard work, from summer camps through three postseason games.

“This is my 13th year coaching football and my first as head coach and I’ve never seen that before,” Behringer said. “It means a lot to me personally. You go to camps and listen to guys like him and you want your program to be like his one day. It means a lot to the coaching staff and it should mean a lot to the kids.”

The Indians (9-3) came out of the gates sprinting, taking the opening drive right down the field and gashing the Cardinals (10-2) for huge running gains.

Senior running back Spencer Carlson capped off the drive with a 24-yard touchdown run and a quick 6-0 lead.

“It felt like it was a lot easier than I thought it would be,” said Carlson, who finished with 116 yards rushing on 20 carries. “I feel like Stillman woke up after that and came in snoozing. But they’re a great team and they hit hard.”

The Cardinals’ offense was stifled into three-and-out on their first two possessions before finally figuring out a play-calling combination that worked for their misdirection rushing attack.

Stillman’s A.J. Dobson scored on a 3-yard run to cap a nine-play third possession, and quarterback Jeff Cialkowski scored on a 20-yard veer option keeper on the fourth possession to give the Cardinals a 14-6 lead at half.

Meanwhile, Sandwich was forced to punt twice and stopped on downs twice.

“After that first drive, we settled down defensively,” Lalor said. “Then we got in our double tight to pound them because we didn’t have the speed and the quickness to match up. There defense ran really well.”

The Indians were stopped on downs on their first possession of the second half and the Cardinals covered 70 yards in 14 plays, ended by Cialkowski’s 18-yard score.

Dobson tacked on a 5-yard touchdown after a very late fourth quarter 45-yard interception return and a 25-yard fumble return not long after made the score appear more lopsided than it was.

Really, it was about Stillman, which didn’t commit a penalty, out-executing an Indians team with virtually the same offensive style and defensive tenacity.

“We knew coming in we had to be disciplined on defense and be almost perfect on offense,” Behringer said. “There were times we didn’t do that. Very proud how we prepared and how we played. It’s just something to build on.”

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