Few things in sports are better than beating your rival. Beating your rival 12 times in a row might be one of those things. Bragging rights on the gridiron reside in Washington once again this year, as the Demons downed Mount Pleasant for the 12th straight time last night in a 54-20 victory at the Mapleleaf Athletic Complex.
As heard on KCII, the Demons could not have started any better with the opening kickoff being returned to Panther territory and the offense marched at will into the end zone on a four yard Tayven Stuart carry. After a stop defensively, the offense continued to stay ahead of the sticks capped off by another Stuart end zone trip. Jude Brown got in on the fun with a two yard rushing score and a 35 yard receiving touchdown in the second quarter before the Mount Pleasant offense finally got something going with a score two minutes before half. Up 26-8, Washington seized momentum right back scoring in 45 seconds headlined by a 21 yard strike from Ethan Patterson to Evan Van Der Molen for the senior’s first touchdown of the fall and to give the Demons a 33-8 halftime advantage.
Every time the Panthers (0-2) found some rhythm in the final two quarters the Demons had an answer with Luke Beenblossom and Stuart adding receiving touchdowns to help salt the game away. Stuart has been a fantasy owner’s dream with four touchdowns last night and seven in two games. The senior carried the rock 19 times for 194 yards and three house calls on the ground with one receiving. Patterson showed off his dual threat capabilities completing six of 13 passes for 130 yards and four touchdowns while adding 123 yards rushing. Washington could do no harm offensively with 467 yards including 337 on the ground. That’s a sharp contrast to minus one yard rushing for Mount Pleasant with DaShaun Westphal-Edwards causing plenty of havoc in the backfield collecting four tackles for a loss. Jacob Richtman did complete 32 of 42 passes for 296 yards, but the Demons never gave up the big play. Aidan Ulin had a 30 yard interception return in the fourth and the orange and black were plus two in the turnover margin.
Head Coach Nick Ehret tells KCII Sports his team started a lot faster than last week. “We preached to them all week that we need to start fast. We wanted to take the ball and march it right down to establish ourselves and we did that. Our run game was tremendous tonight and it starts with our boys upfront. Our line played outstanding so very happy for those guys.”
Washington improves to 2-0 and they return him Friday against Clear Creek-Amana for Heroes Night.