By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

MILLBURY — The backfield trio of Dylan Wright, Julian Rodriguez and Izyck Whalen helped the Lake football team grind its way to a 35-0 win over Northwood inside Lake Community Stadium on Friday.

“I’m excited for this season,” Lake coach Lane Bishop said. “I’m proud of our guys. I don’t know if we would have ever had a game last year where hardly completed any passes and still put up 35 points. I’m very pleased with our run game right now compared to where we were last year.”

The Flyers completed just seven passes, five of which came in the second half. Their first completion didn’t come until 1:42 left in the first half when Carter Behlmer found Gavin Kohlhofer for a 59-yard touchdown strike that put Lake up 21-0.

After a slow start, which saw both teams put up a scoreless first quarter offensively, Lake exploded on the ground in the second and carried that momentum over to the second half.

Rodriguez led Lake in carries with 11 while racking up 70 yards and a touchdown. Whalen added a pair of scores while accumulating 51 yards over seven carries. Wright was the big-play back, finishing with five carries and a team-best 80 yards.

Backup quarterback KJ Magers also toted the ball five times for 17 yards on the final drive while punching it in from 1-yard out.

“It all starts in practice,” Whalen said. “We put in the work. The mentality is fourth and goal every play, and we just go downhill. That’s how we do it.”

In total, Lake racked up 273 yards over 40 carries.

“I think that speaks volumes about the guys we have up front,” Bishop said. “They’ve really set the tone for us this season. We told them at the end of the first quarter that we were going to get big and just run it at them.”

Lake’s first three possessions featured a punt after a three-and-out, a turnover on downs and another punt, the last of which came on a drive that spanned the end of the first and into the second quarter.

“I thought we came out sluggish in the first quarter,” Bishop said. “I don’t know if it was the heat or a different pre-game routine where we weren’t fully suited.

“Once we got through that feel-it-out period, we were able to establish ourselves at the line of scrimmage, which really kind of made the difference in us opening the game up in the second quarter.”

Perhaps the game’s most pivotal sequence came early in the second quarter. In a scoreless game, Northwood’s Jaylen Archer returned a punt all the way to Lake’s 29-yard line, but a fumble, an incomplete pass and a three-yard gain stalled the drive.

The Rangers made the best of the situation, downing the ensuing punt at Lake’s one-yard line.

Lake responded, however, with a 99-yard touchdown drive over seven plays. Every yard came on the ground over the two-minute, 13-second drive, which was punctuated by a one-yard touchdown run from Rodriguez.

On the next drive for the Flyers, they marched 60 yards over eight plays in just under three minutes. Whalen capped the drive with a 13-yard touchdown run in which he bullied a pair of Northwood defenders inside the five.

Lake got the ball back with just under two minutes left in the first half, where Behlmer found Kohlhofer on the first play.

On the flip side, Northwood struggled offensively despite some flashes from quarterback Tyler Osley.

“(Lake) did a good job of mixing up defenses that got us off track on offense,” Northwood head coach Ken James said. “We just couldn’t get anything going. Our quarterback made some plays here and there, but we have to be able to run the ball effectively when we get down there in the red zone.”

The Rangers punted the ball on all six first-half possessions, one of which was extended by a successful first-down run on a fake punt. The second half didn’t get much better against Lake’s defense as Northwood had a pair of turnovers on downs and a fumble.

The fumble came on a third and six at Lake’s 12 with just over two minutes left in the third quarter. Solaris Tedrow stripped Osley and recovered the fumble, which eventually led to an eight-yard touchdown from Whalen for a 28-0 lead.

“We weren’t very good on offense,” James said. “We just couldn’t move the ball. I thought our defense played really well and had a good game going, but eventually they just wore down.

“We have some execution stuff we have to figure out on offense. Age-wise, we’re like a JV team. I’m not complaining. That’s just the situation.

“We’re going to get there. We’re just not there yet. I have confidence in our coaches and our kids. We’ll be back to work tomorrow morning.”

The two teams combined for 12 full drives in the opening half before totaling just six in the second half. Lake’s final drive was a three-minute, 41-second touchdown march with 3:54 left where Magers accounted for 48 yards.

Aside from the 59-yard strike to Kohlhofer, Lake’s other big pass play came on a third and seven on the drive following the Tedrow fumble recovery where Behlmer found Jay Blazevich for 36 yards.

Defensively, Lake has now posted six-consecutive scoreless quarters.

“I would say hats off to our defensive staff,” Bishop said. “I have some really good coaches. They do a good job of putting together a game plan and getting us in the right spot. We have a great buy-in from our kids, and they’ve really bought into our mindset that we’ve had.

“We’ve noticed a big shift in our mentality where we get 11 guys to the football. We’ve just bought into the mindset that we’re going to run the football and play good defense.”

Lake improved to 2-0 on the young season with the win. Whalen, who was injured for most of the past two seasons, couldn’t be happier with the strong start to his senior year.

“It feels great being back,” he said. “It sucks when you get hurt and you can’t help your team out when you want to so bad. This is great. I have never been 2-0 my whole high school career. I just want to keep it going.”