ST. MARYS – While the night was to honor the Hall of Fame past at St. Marys this years squad put on a show of their own as the Roughriders rolled past Kenton Friday night in front of a capacity crowd 55-0 for their seventh straight victory in the series.
Despite losing the coin toss and opening the game on defense for the first time this season the blue and gold still found themselves with the first score of the night after a Jacob Kessler interception in Kenton territory.
St. Marys drove 47 yards on six plays in just under two minutes for the opening salvo, a six yard touchdown run by Brayden Sullivan to take a 7-0 lead following a Logan Rush extra point that they would never relinquish.
Roughrider defensive back Caleb Felver stopped the second Kenton possession of the evening with the first of his three takeaways, a fumble recovery at the Wildcat 43 to again give his offense a short field to work with.
Taking nearly three minutes of game action the St. Marys offense pushed in on their ninth play of the drive when the WBL’s leading rusher Aiden Hinkle notched the first of his three scores on a jaunt from a yard out to make it 14-0.
Hinkle’s second marker of the game and league leading 13th of the campaign came under a minute later as the Riders saw their senior back cash in on a 27 yard run to make it a 21-0 affair.
Though the Wildcats were able to move the football on their fourth possession of the first quarter, St. Marys forced a punt and took over after five plays and a kick at their own 17.
Quarterback Cody Wallace’s deep throw down the sideline in front of the Kenton bench found it’s way into the waiting arms of speedster Keegan Sharpe for the longest pass of the season for St. Marys with a minute remaining to make the score 28-0 Roughriders.
Beginning with just :11 remaining in the first quarter at their own 24 after a Kenton fumble and ending with 7:25 before the halftime stoppage the Riders tallied a second consecutive Sharpe score, this time a nine yard run to cap off a 10 play drive to push ahead 35-0.
Kenton’s second three and out drive of the first half gave St. Marys field position once again inside Wildcat territory with 6:58 left in the second stanza and set the table for a third and final score by Hinkle and a 42-0 advantage.
Hinkle ended the evening with 161 yards and three touchdowns on his way to increasing his league leading totals of yards and touchdowns to 949 and 14 respectively.
Having nearly the exact same score in the first half of last years contest in Kenton, the Riders hit for six more on their next drive when Wallace connected with Keegan Sharpe for a 30 yard touchdown but were forced to settle for a 48-0 advantage due to a missed extra point.
In the first half the Roughriders outgained Kenton 304-10 on the ground and 399-96 overall.
Dominik Osborne’s first career touchdown cemented the final score on the seventh play of the opening drive of the second half as he carried for a seven yard score with 7:21 to go in the third with the clock running to run the score to 55-0 St. Marys.
According to St. Marys statistician Andy Rammel the Riders 10 players who carried the ball in the game accounted for 486 yards on 62 carries. Eight of the ten players who toted the football for St. Marys finished with a yards per carry average of 5.7 yards or more with three accounting for a total of six scores.
Kenton (1-6, 1-5) finished with 167 total yards led by a 9/21 performance from QB Korbin Johnston who tallied 70 yards and a pair of interceptions. The Wildcats were led on the ground by Luke Leffler’s 42 yards on eight carries.
Next week Kenton will face a tall task as they take on the Western Buckeye League’s best offense in the Van Wert Cougars.
St. Marys improves to 5-2 overall and 4-2 in WBL contests while gaining 581 yards on offense and forcing a season high five turnovers on the defensive side of the ball.
On the calendar to begin the month of October for the Roughriders is a trip to Elida to take on the Bulldogs in a game broadcast live on WKKI K94.3 FM beginning with the pregame at 6:30pm.