By Mike Coppage

Special to The Daily Iberian

 

St. Thomas More running back William Cryer gained 269 yards rushing on 10 carries with three touchdowns as the visiting Cougars brushed off a slow start to defeat Westgate 71-20 in the district opener for both teams.

“The linemen were able to make it easy for me to hit holes,” said the senior, who reached the end zone from 80, 10 and 80 yards, respectively.   “It was just easy to make runs and make cuts off the holes they made.  I’ve never gotten that many yards before so it feels really good.

“It feels even better to get the win to start off district on the right foot.  We started off pretty slow but realized we just needed to pick it up.  Once we get hot, it can be hard to stop us.” 

Westgate’s offense was hard to stop in the early going.  

The Tigers (3-3, 0-1) accrued 318 yards of total offense in the first half, which finished with STM holding a 29-14 advantage.

Two WHS drives in the first half reached the red zone and ended with no points to show for it.  

“We had a great game plan to start off,” WHS head coach Ryan Antoine said.  “We ran 67 plays in the first half on offense and only had like 17 plays on defense.  I felt like we put ourselves in position to make plays.”

Late in the second quarter, Westgate drove to the STM seven-yard line and appeared to face a fourth-and-goal with five seconds remaining on the clock, but the officials were apparently keeping the time on the field and not the scoreboard.

“On the last play of the first half we put ourselves in a bind,” Antoine said.  “We were trying to kick a field goal and the referees made a mistake.  They ran the clock after the injury time-out but they didn’t run it on the scoreboard, they ran it on the sideline.

“I was going to call a timeout once the clock started running, but it didn’t run (on the scoreboard).  We tried to get a play but the clock ran out.  That was a big swing of momentum right there.”

Westgate (3-3, 0-1) maintained the momentum for most of the first quarter.

STM received the opening kickoff and collected one first down before the Tigers forced a punt.

Westgate then drove 67 yards before turning the ball over at the STM 12-yard line on second-and-three.

“We just shot ourselves in the foot tonight,” Antoine said.  “That was the biggest thing.  We put ourselves in a bind.   

“On our first series, the center snapped the ball when the quarterback was checking down and we fumbled the ball away when we hopefully would have gotten at least three points out of it.”

The Tigers led 14-8 in the second quarter as a result of two touchdown passes from Mar’keyvrick Eddie (20-of-33, 283 yards, three TD).

Eddie tossed scoring strikes to Kayshon Boutte, Makholven Sonn and Jordan Doucet.

Sonn led all receivers with 10 catches for 169 yards and Boutte grabbed six passes for 92 yards.

“Our playmakers made plays,” Antoine said.  “Kayshon and Makholven.  We went to them and they made plays.  That’s all we can ask.  But we have to be able to run the ball a little bit better when they give us the run lanes that they did.

“The thing is, in the first half we have to make tackles in the secondary.  They’re catching and throwing.  

“We have to be able to make a simple tackle and live to play another down.  They probably had about eight or nine plays over 60 yards.  We just gave it to them.”

The Tigers took the second-half kickoff and reduced the STM lead to 29-20 on a seven-yard pass from Eddie to Marks.

The Cougars exerted control from there, however, scoring the final 42 points of the game.

“The third quarter took forever,” Antoine said.  “We might have given up 28 points in the third quarter.  We kind of fizzled out.”