Football: Douglas runs past Galena

Douglas coach Mike Rippee has been preaching the run all season despite his team's ability to throw the ball.

After Fallon held the potent Tiger aerial attack to just 138 yards last week, it seems the point finally hit home.

Douglas junior Johnny Pollack ran for 221 yards and a touchdown and the Tigers piled up 267 yards and three touchdowns on the ground total on their way to a 42-21 victory over Galena in Minden Friday night.

"We were glad to see the run game working so well," Rippee said. "We're not going to abandon the pass, because we have the people in place to do that, but you have to be able to run the football. It just makes both phases of your offense go better when you can do multiple things."

And Douglas certainly didn't abandon the pass.

Quarterback Tim Rudnick threw for 253 yards and three touchdowns in the game, spreading the ball to six different receivers. James McLaughlin and Zach McFadden were his top targets, catching five passes for 58 yards and four passes for 55 yards respectively.

"Fallon played a lot of press-man on us and this week our receivers just worked on getting ogg the man," Rudnick said. "We knew we needed to run the ball more too and the offensive line really stepped up and played an absolutely great game."

The effort on the line was led by Parker Robertson, Nick Mortenson, Ryan Moglich, Garrett Tenney, Sam Barragan, Jacob Phillips and Eric Guzman.

Robertson, though, went down with a knee injury midway through the second quarter and was on crutches for the remainder of the game. He said he didn't think it was serious, but no determination on the extent or nature of the injury had been made.

Douglas led 42-7 at one point but Galena scored a pair of late touchdowns to narrow the score.

"We just need to finish better," Rippee said. "It was a good win, the kids have worked hard and they deserved this one, they should enjoy this one. Galena is a good program with a lot of good kids."

The game was Douglas' first at home in six weeks and appropriately was also the school's homecoming.

"It seems like forever since we've been home," Rudnick said. "We wanted to get going early and try to take them out of the game."

And that was exactly what Douglas was able to do.

The Tigers scored on their first drive as Rudnick connected with McLaughlin on a 16-yard pass to culminate a seven-play, 77-yard drive.

Tenney blocked a punt on Galena's first drive and nearly blocked one on the Grizzlies' second.

The score remained at 7-0 through the first quarter but Douglas extended it to 21-0 on a one-yard touchdown run from Rudnick and a two-yarder from Jordan Cruz.

Cruz's touchdown was set up by a 72-yard run from Pollack.

"Johnny had a tremendous second effort on many of his runs," Rippee said. "There were a number of times where it looked like he was about to go down and he just kept going. That the type of back Johnny is. He is a special player."

Nico Barker picked off a pass with a little over a minute left in the first half and Rudnick connected with McFadden for a 15-yard touchdown three plays later to take a 28-0 lead into the locker room.

Brad Gonzalez ended Galena's first drive of the second half with an interception that was set up when Douglas defensive tackle Robbie O'Dell hit Galena quarterback Beau Bickel as he released the ball.

Pollack scored three plays later on a four-yard plunge.

Galena's first scoring drive came on a marathon 18-play, 86-yard drive that started on a fumble recovery at the Douglas 14, continued on a bobbled punt at the 36 and finished on a 20-yard pass from Bickel to Luke Hess.

Douglas answered with a six-play, 69-yard drive that finished with Rudnick connecting with Thomas for a 27-yard score.

Galena came back with another sustained drive, this time scoring on a seven-yard pass from Bickel to Hess and scored once more on a six-yard pass from Bickel to Nick Dufur.

The Grizzlies got 88 yards on the ground from Jarrod Faust and Bickel finished with 180 yards and three touchdown passes.

Connor Dillon had two catches for 41 yards, Thomas had two catches for 35 yards, Guzman had two catches for 30 yards and Pollack had one catch for 11 yards.

Cruz ran for 27 yards, Rudnick ran for eight and Barron Santiago ran for 10 yards.

Santiago also appeared to have an interception in the fourth quarter, but it was called back on a penalty.