DENVER- In the first quarter of Friday nights game between the Whitko Wildcats and the North Miami Warriors, it seemed as if Miami's B.J. Edwards would run for 400 yards. On North Miami's first drive Edwards carried the ball for 49 yards and capped it off with a one yard dive to put North Miami up 6-0. After a two-point conversion, Whitko came right back and tied things up when quarterback Jimmy Linn connected with Keith Starkweather on a 25 yard strike. They also converted on a two-point conversion to even things at 8-8.

From there on, Whitko had its way with North Miami, eventually winning the game 30 to 8.

At the end of the first quarter Edwards was near 100 yards rushing. That's when Wildcats' coach Bryan Sprunger tightened up his defense. North Miami's wishbone offense did little after the first quarter to pose a threat. Sprunger plugged up the middle of the field and kept Edwards from running off big chunks of yardage.

"We had to take care of the fullback," Sprunger said. "It's important against a wishbone offense."

With 1:58 left in the first half, the Wildcats had a chance to pull ahead. They went into their two minute offense and ran it to perfection. Tim Mason had two big runs of 24 and 18 yards to place the Wildcats deep in North Miami territory. Mason had another run of seven yards to put Whitko at the North Miami seven yard line with seven seconds left to go in the half. Whitko quickly took a timeout to talk things over. Linn hiked the ball and headed for the endzone. A wall of North Miami defenders then surronded Linn. He pitched the ball to Bryan Rose who scampered into the corner of the endzone to put Whitko ahead 14-8 with no time left in the half. Whitko converted another two-point conversion to make the halftime score 16-8.

The second half belonged to the Wildcats and their defense. They held Edwards to 27 yards rushing on 15 carries. They also held North Miami to six yards passing for the whole game. Without North MIami being able to sustain a long drive their defense became tired and incapable of stopping Whitko's running attack. Late in the third quarter Linn ran it in from 11 yards out and converted another two-point conversion.

North Miami did have plenty of chances however to stay in the game. The squad just couldn't capitalize.

Coach Sprunger admitted, "We played hard but we have a tendency to make mistakes. Defensively we stood around and then played out of control."

With the game out of reach Sprunger put in his second and third stringers to prevent injury. Junior fullback Joe Poqis ran three times for 33 yards which led to Rose scoring again, this time on a one yard run. Whitko, now 4-3 and 3-2 in the TRC, hosts Rochester next Friday. [[In-content Ad]]