Photos: Cretin Ends Losing Streak to Ponies in Dominating Fashion

Stillwater had a chance to win its third straight game against Cretin-Derham Hall in as many years.

For the past two seasons, the Ponies came into the matchup as underdogs, but pulled away with upset victories to shock Minnesota high school football fans.

That was simply not the case on Friday night as the Ponies were beaten soundly by the No. 3-ranked Raiders 34-7 at Pony Stadium.

Cretin was near perfect on defense, which was the best in the Suburban East Conference (SEC) coming in.

It did not allow Ponies quarterback Nate Ricci time to throw and pounded the junior signal caller to the ground on a regular basis.

What is truly scary is Raiders coach Mike Scanlan said the score could have been worse, but the offense did not capitalize more on the four Stillwater turnovers.

“It’s been unbelievable. This is going to come off really bad, but I think we could have scored 50,” Scanlan said. “The defense kept giving us the ball and we just would not take advantage of it.”

Prior to, Cretin found itself near the bottom of most of the offensive statistical categories in the SEC.

Several big plays put those to rest, especially in the third quarter where the Raiders stretched a 13-0 halftime lead into a 34-0 advantage heading into the final quarter.

“I don’t think this is a reflection of who we are,” Ponies coach Beau LaBore said. “It’s obviously disappointing.”

Cretin opened the scoring in the first quarter when quarterback Kevin Miley hit Jame Onwualu for a 15-yard touchdown.

After a mix of turnovers and punts, the Raiders struck again in the second quarter when Kendrik Brewster flew through the first level and was raced in for a 48-yard touchdown to give Cretin a 13-0 lead, which it took to halftime.

After the Raiders stopped the Ponies on the opening drive of the second half, the team members went on a mission, tallying 21 points in the third quarter to put a stranglehold on the game and the lead in the SEC.

Miley threw for his second touchdown, hitting Cortez Tillman on a beautifully executed route to the left sidelines.

After that Miley was done for the night and Connor Rhoda took over and the Raiders offense did not miss a beat.

After a Ponies turnover, Cretin had the ball on the Stillwater 2.

Eventually, Rhoda was able to punch in a score from the 1.

Rhoda had a chance to show off his arm on the next drive when he delivered a perfect pass to Maxwell Gardner for a 39-yard touchdown.

“We didn’t make many of the close plays and Cretin did,” LaBore said. “They deserve some credit for that.”

When most of the Cretin starters on defense were out of the game, Nick Anderson broke the shutout bid, scoring on a goaline play to get Stillwater on the board.

To make matters worse, Stillwater had to see Ricci leave the game with an apparent left leg injury.

As the only threat for the Ponies, Ricci had taken matters into his own hands, calling his number on several quarterback keeper plays.

After one play in the fourth, he did not get up, had to be assisted off the field and eventually carted into the locker room.

His performance caught the attention of the Cretin coach, but Scanlan said the Ponies, and other teams that have running quarterbacks, to be cautious of how many hits they take.

He is the best kid we have seen in a long time,” Scanlan said of Ricci. “You got to be real careful with him.

“We wanted to contain him and put pressure on him and hit him every time he had the ball. I’m not a big fan of quarterbacks running the ball, our guys do, too, but it’s like you open yourself up to injuries like that and it’s too bad. He is thier offense and that kid is good. He’s the best kid we have played against this year.”

After the game LaBore did not know the severity of Ricci’s injury.

“I just hope Nate is OK,” he said.

If the Ponies have been the monkey on the Raiders back, it definitely came off on Friday.

Like a machine, Cretin stayed in the present and did not reflect on the two previous losses to Stillwater.

“We didn’t mention it all week,” Scanlan said.

With the loss, Stillwater drops to 2-1 on the season and will travel to Forest Lake next Friday, which has a 1-2 record after falling to White Bear Lake 35-26.