NORTH ROBINSON — The loneliest player on the Colonel Crawford football team had to be the punter. He never stepped on the field.
The Eagles had possession of the ball nine times Friday night against Wynford and scored eight times. The only thing that stopped Crawford was the end of the game.
Crawford rushed for 368 yards on 42 carries as tailback Lincoln Mollenkopf rushed for 247 yards on 26 totes and scored four touchdowns in an impressive 48-21 win over the Royals.
With the win, the Eagles improved to 2-1 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, 5-1 overall. Wynford fell to 2-1 in the conference and 3-3 overall.
Mollenkopf entered the game leading the N10 with 870 rushing yards and 16 rushing touchdowns. Unofficially, the Crawford star now has 1,117 yards and 20 touchdowns.
Wynford coach Gabe Helbert said that defending the Eagles is quite difficult.
“They have some weapons,” Helbert said. “(Mollenkopf) is a really good football player. He’s extremely dangerous, explosive. He does a lot of things well.
“They have some other pieces of the puzzle that are good football players,” Helbert added. “(Carson Feichtner) is good in the passing game, the receivers are good, the other back (Matt Clinard) is good, too. A lot of dangerous guys and they do a good job upfront on both sides of the ball, so a credit to them.
“They played a really nice football game and, unfortunately, we didn’t get it done,” he added.
Colonel Crawford coach Ryan Teglovic felt that his offense is just getting into shape.
“Obviously, it starts with Lincoln,” Teglovic said. “He’s a special player, he had another heck of a night tonight. When you key too much on him, the other running back, Matt Clinard, can run the football, too, and Kam Lohr made some big runs for us tonight as well.
“We also made some big passes when we needed to,” he added. “Offensively, we clicked on all cylinders tonight and we played well.”
Wynford also moved the ball well, finishing with 247 yards passing and 363 in total yardage.
And it was the Royals who drew blood first, getting a nine-yard scoring pass from Cobey Allen to Kendall Blair.
Crawford came back in its first possession and got a 25-yard scoring pass from quarterback Kamryn Lohr to tight end Carson Feichtner.
Crawford put the game away in the second quarter.
Mollenkopf scored on a 49-yard dash, then added a 14-yard jaunt midway through the quarter to take a 21-7 lead.
Wynford cut the lead to 21-14 on an Allen to James Schiefer 51-yard pass.
But the Eagles got an eight-yard scoring run from Mollenkopf and a 26-yard field goal from Braxton Morton to take a 31-14 lead at the half.
The Royals, who had a touchdown pass from Allen to Jaron Filliater called back because of a holding call in the second quarter, got a score in the third when Allen hit Filliater from 62 yards out.
The Eagles got an eight-yard scoring run from Clinard and a five-yard run from Mollenkopf to take a 45-21 lead into the final frame.
Morton booted a 20-yard field goal in the fourth period.
Penalties hurt the Royals in the game. Wynford had nine for 92 yards to just three for 25 for the Eagles.
“Penalties, third down, and fourth down really hurt us tonight,” Helbert said. “We gave up a big fourth-down completion early in the game, we have a first down on a big run and it gets called back for holding, we had a touchdown pass called back.
“We had a bunch of pre-snap penalties, self-inflicted, holds, stuff like that over the course of the game,” he added. “But the pre-snap penalties and a lack of discipline has been a problem and we have to fix that. It’s unfortunate that we still have to deal with that.
Allen had a good night throwing the ball for the Royals, hitting 13 of 20 throws for three scores. But Teglovic felt that his defense played well.
“Wynford is a big-play team,” Teglovic said. “The Filliater kid is a very good receiver. They had the number two passer in the league coming in, he had 10 touchdowns and one interception coming in, he’s a heck of a quarterback.
“For us to be able to hang in there and give up 21 points, that’s a good offense to hold to 21 points,” he added. “I’m happy with the way we played on both sides of the football.”
Crawford retained the Iron Plow for the second straight season. According to Teglovic, this was the first time the Eagles had beaten the Royals in back-to-back seasons since 1992 and 1993.
“We lost a lot of guys last season off a good football team; these guys kept plugging away and have put themselves in a good position,” Teglovic said. “They are 5-1, so, hopefully, we can continue to improve and get ourselves ready, hopefully, for the postseason.”
Box score
Score by quarters
Wynford 7 7 7 0 — 21
Colonel Crawford 7 24 14 3 — 48
Scoring summary
First quarter
W — Kendall Blair 9 pass from Coby Allen (Trent Greene kick), 5:48.
CC — Carson Feichtner 25 pass from Kamryn Lohr (Braxton Morton kick), :54.
Second quarter
CC — Lincoln Mollenkopf 49 run (Morton kick), 11:17.
CC — Mollenkopf 14 run (Morton kick), 6:36.
W — James Schiefer 51 pass from Allen (Greene kick), 5:40.
CC — Mollenkopf 40 run (Morton kick), 4:05.
CC — Morton 26 field goal, :00.
Third quarter
CC — Matt Clinard 8 run (Morton kick), 6:01.
W — Jaron Filliater 61 pass from Allen (Greene kick), 4:27.
CC — Mollenkopf 5 run (Morton kick), 1:54.
Fourth quarter
CC — Morton 20 field goal, 5:13.
Individual statistics
Passing
Wynford: Cobey Allen 13-20-2 247. Colonel Crawford: Kamryn Lohr 8-14-0 110.
Rushing
Wynford: Kendall Blair 11-71, Kaden Blair 7-22, Cobey Allen 8-(-4). Colonel Crawford: Lincoln Mollenkopf 26-247, Lohr 7-74, Matt Clinard 8-33, Trevor Voight 1-14.
Receiving
Wynford: Jaron Filliater 6-158, James Schiefer 1-51, Owen Whitmeyer 3-24, Kendall Blair 1-9, Kaden Blair 2-5. Colonel Crawford: Carson Feichtner 3-46, Voight 1-28, Mollenkopf 2-18, Clinard 1-17, Nolan McKibben 1-11.
Team statistics
W CC
First downs 10 20
Rushing 26-89 42-368
Passes 13-20-2 8-14-0
Yards passing 247 110
Total yards 336 478
Fumbles-lost 0-0 0-0
Punts-Avg 2-46.5 0-00.0
Penalties 10-92 3-25