CONCRETE — Coming into Saturday’s game, Concrete football coach Ron Rood wanted better blocking and more consistent play.
The Lions gave him all of that and more.
Kyler Howell ran for 182 yards and three touchdowns, Derek Rice ran for 116 yards and two scores and the Lions rolled past the Inglemoor junior varsity 42-19 on Saturday afternoon for a non-league victory.
Concrete racked up 428 yards on the ground.
The Lions opened their season the week before with another sizable win, toppling Liberty Bell 45-7 with a senior-laden team that went to the playoffs last season. But Rood and the Lions wanted to see more improvement before they enter their league season, including better blocking and more consistency on the offensive side of the ball.
He saw it from the beginning of Saturday’s game, which saw the Lions march down the field on their first drive, capped by a 4-yard scoring run from Rice.
Inglemoor responded with a short drive after a 70-yard kickoff return, but Concrete reeled off three straight scores — a 13-yard run from a scrambling Smith, a 1-yard run from Howell and a 79-yard run from Howell on a draw play that resulted in plenty of open real estate.
“We got better consistency on offense, which we wanted to, and we got better blocking,” Rood said. “It wasn’t just the offensive line that had trouble (blocking earlier), it was everybody. But we saw improvement today.”
“We were trying to get our backs blocking, and I think we did a better job,” Howell said. “We had better gains. All the backs gained yards.”
The Lions got two more rushing scores, one apiece from Howell (13 yards) and Rice (3 yards), but the offense wasn’t the whole story. The Lions held the Viking to 23 yards of passing offense, and except for several explosive plays from Inglemoor’s Jerry Molina (seven carries, 136 yards, two touchdowns), they stifled Inglemoor’s running game.
Rood said he was impressed with the performances of defenders Sean Fipps, Rice and Tyler Massingale.
“We can tell this is a group of seniors who have played together for several years,” Inglemoor coach Justin Boyce said. “They got off the ball well and were strong. This was a great opportunity to play against a bigger, faster team.”
Molina, a sophomore, had touchdown runs of 66 and 36 yards on his way to a big afternoon.
While the margin of victory was large, Rood said the Vikings rolled out a tough group of players, especially early in the contest before the Lions pulled away.
“Their first group of kids was a really good group, and we were going back and forth with them,” he said.
Next up, the Lions will face a challenging opponent in Nooksack Valley, which beat Sedro-Woolley 14-7 Friday.
The Lions face the Pioneers at 7 p.m. Friday at Nooksack Valley.
