Red Oak routes Riverside 42-0 for first win
ANDREW NOSTVICK
Sports Reporter
OAKLAND — The Red Oak Tigers football team got back on track last Friday with their 42-0 road win versus the Riverside Bulldogs.
The win was much needed for Red Oak (1-1), who started the season with the shutout home loss to Glenwood the previous week.
Red Oak quarterback Carlos Guerra snapped the scoring drought for Red Oak early in the first quarter with a 32-yard scramble through the Riverside defense on the first play of the drive for his first touchdown of the season. It was one of four rushing touchdowns for Guerra on the night.
“The linemen, they were communicating to me, they told me where to go,” Guerra said. “I listened to them and I made that cutback to get into the end zone.”
Fernando Corado kicked the PAT and the Tigers had their first lead of the season, 7-0, with 8:52 left in the first quarter.
Guerra also had a passing touchdown, which came late in the first quarter when he found wide receiver Conner Jansky on a streak down the sideline for a 47-yard score. Corado’s PAT made the Red Oak lead 14-0 after one quarter.
“You also see that we’re not one dimensional,” Red Oak football coach Barry Bower said. “We have a lot of weapons that we’re going to utilize and we will utilize them.”
Red Oak’s next score didn’t come until later in the second quarter when Brock Isaacson found an opening and cruised through the Bulldogs defense 55-yards for his first touchdown of the season and putting the Tigers ahead 21-0.
“Not only did the linemen do good blocking, I gotta give credit to the wide receivers, they had some good blocking on the edge, which made me get those right cuts and take it to the house,” Isaacson said.
It was the longest run of the game for Isaacson, who had 122 yards on 14 carries to lead the Tigers in rushing.
“Give it all to the linemen, if they don’t get those holes open for us, we can’t hit them,” Isaacson said. “If there’s no holes, what can we do?”
The Tigers scored once more before the halftime when Guerra battled his way through the defense to get a seven-yard touchdown run with 17 seconds left to put the Tigers up 28-0 at halftime.
Red Oak was set up late in the half thanks to an interception by defensive back Dylan Graber, who ran it to the Riverside 28-yard line.
The second half started slow when Red Oak turned it over on their first drive. Turnovers were an issue for the Tigers as they turned it over four times against Riverside (three fumbles, one interception).
“I’m going to take the positive that we won 42-0. We did some awfully good things on both the offensive end and the defensive end because when you play as well as we did tonight, some of those can be washed,” Bower said.
Even with the success, the team knows they’ll need to work on the turnover problem, especially with district play starting this week.
“With the turnovers, we’re going to have to work on that in practice. That’s been a big thing with us running backs is keeping that ball high and tight,” Isaacson said. “It slipped away from us and we’re going to have to work on that.”
Red Oak quickly recovered after the turnover when Guerra scored his third rushing touchdown of the game on a one-yard run with 5:20 left in the third quarter to put Red Oak up 35-0.
The key play of the drive came on 3rd and long when Guerra completed a 40-yard pass down the field to Jansky to keep the drive alive. Jansky had three catches in the game for 119 yards. Clay Selberg also had a 19-yard catch on the drive.
“You load up the box on us, we’re gonna go over the top,” Bower said. “You better play sound defense because that’s the numbers game that we’re going to play and we’re going to continue that.”
Red Oak got the clock running for the remainder of the game. Guerra scored his last touchdown with about seven minutes to go in the game on a one-yard run into the end zone.
Guerra finished the game with 94 yards on 11 carries. He was 4-for-7 passing with 138 yards. Guerra credits much of the success to the offensive line.
“I think our offensive line did really well today,” he said. I know we’ve been encouraging them every week and at every practice, but they really did an outstanding job tonight.
The Tigers snapped a four-game losing skid dating back to last season. Red Oak’s last win came Oct. 3, 2014 versus Treynor. The shutout win is the first for Red Oak since last season when they defeated Riverside 39-0.
With the Tigers at .500 entering district play this week, much of the focus now turns to Shenandoah. Red Oak has won the last three meetings against the Mustangs, including last year by a 32-27 score.
Friday’s game against Shenandoah will be home as they face off at 7 p.m.