Wildcats pounce Cougars; 1st win in Valasek era.

Establish dominance. Thats what St. Paul Head Coach Cory Valasek has been preaching from the beginning. Thats exactly what the St. Paul Football team did against the Cross County Cougars. 

After turning the ball over on downs on their opening possession, the Cats got a spark from Senior Leader Zandyn Weller as a long punt return set the Cats up inside the Cougars 20 yard-line and it didnt take long before Junior Mason Majerus cashed in from 3 yards out for the only score of the quarter for a 7-0 Cats lead following a Christian Lemburg PAT.

Lemburg extended the Cat lead to 10 with a 33 yard field goal with 7:57 to go in the half. Majerus scored his 2nd TD of the night from 2 yards out with 1:39 left in the Half to make it 17-0 Wildcats. Cross County couldn't find the endzone before the break to give the Cats the 17 point lead.

Wildcats were rolling on all cylinders in the 3rd scoring their first points in the 3rd quarter this season with touchdown runs of 15 yards from Alex Meinecke and 3 yards from Bradyn Hazen for his first career varsity touchdown to make it 31-0 St. Paul at the end of the 3rd quarter.

Coming into the contest Cross County hadnt scored a touchdown in 9 quarters with their last TD coming against Superior 3 games ago. It was 1:52:38 of scoreless football for the Cougars and it would take 4 additional quarters before they found the endzone as Tyion Francis scored from 15 yards out with 3:38 left in the game to end their scoreless drought at 2 hours and 38 minutes of comibined football game time. The Cougars went for 2 and failed to recover the Onside Kick.

The Cats made the switch to their JV and continued to run out the clock. Cross County scored one final time with :39 seconds left. Another 2 point conversion rounded out the scoring at 31-16. Cats recovered the onside kick and for Cory Valasek he got to call every coaches' favorite formation in victory for the first of his Wildcat tenure.

Bradyn Hazen earned Runza Player of the Game while Zandyn Weller's punt return was our Dugout Grill Dang Good Play of the Game.

St. Paul(1-5) will be on the road at Boone Central(3-3) next Friday. The Cardinals escaped Howard County with a win Friday over Centura 24-20 was the final Score.

Clipped below are highlights of tonight's game