Mooseheart’s defense set the tone early, forcing North Shore turnovers on the visitors’ first two possessions Thursday in the Northeastern Athletic tilt.
Taking advantage of a short field on both, the Red Rambler offense put up two quick scores on drives of 32 and 25 yards and cruised to a 55-0 decision.
“We’re very happy to be 3-0 after the first third of the season,” said Mooseheart coach Gary Urwiler, whose team has outscored three opponents 146-23.
“We’re where we’d like to be, being 3-0 is a great start. We’ve got a lot of things to work on as far as the mental part of the game. Physically, we’re doing all right, but mentally, we’ve had just too many penalties.”
The Red Ramblers, who got those opening scores on a 24-yard run from QB Willie Nicholas and an 8-yard run by running back Freddy Okito, had 70 yards in penalties on 11 infractions.
Urwiler knows that could come back to bite his team because the schedule gets tougher; Mooseheart’s first three foes are a combined 1-6.
“We’ve had 28 [penalties] in three games. That’s surely gonna be killing us in games that are more competitive if it continues,” said Urwiler, whose team had three touchdowns called back.
Mooseheart rolled up 303 rushing yards and Nicholas and backup David Serrano combined to pass for 100 more while the defense limited the Raiders’ running game to a net of minus-2 yards and 64 total yards.
Mooseheart recovered one of three lost NSCD fumbles on the first drive and linebacker John Ranum picked off a pass from sophomore QB Jackson Gray on the second drive and returned it 42 yards to set up the second score.
Junior running back Joe Feemorlu led the Rambler rushing attack with 84 yards on 11 carries but had TD runs of 33 and 38 yards negated by penalties. He also returned a kickoff 70 yards for a score.
Okito and Nicholas added second scores on runs of 33 and 4 yards, respectively, while freshman Tarry Johnson had a 33-yard scoring run and senior receiver JJ Odunsi caught a 14-yard TD pass from Nicholas.
Senior running back Manny Gonzalez ran 15 times for 34 yards and caught three passes for 16 more to lead the 0-3 Raiders. Gray completed just 4 of 15 passes for 52 yards and was picked off twice.
