Two takeaways from Pickford's season opening victory over Gaylord St. Mary
PICKFORD ― Week one of the high school football season can be sloppy.
With the reality of an entire offseason of work coming to fruition comes nerves, and nerves cause the occasional miscue; it's a natural symptom of early-season high school football.
Pickford had to overcome a major miscue on play number one of their week one matchup with Gaylord St. Mary, fumbling the first snap of the game and leaving their defense with a short field to defend.
Head coach Josh Rader's team responded with a stop on defense, and from there, Pickford played about as soundly as they could've played.
The Panthers' defense limited what Gaylord St. Mary could accomplish, while the offense started clicking after the early turnover, helping Pickford run away with a 40-22 victory over the Snowbirds to open the season.
"We fumbled right away on that first play, they marched right down to our five-yard line and to be able to get a stop, then drive down the field and score, that was big for us, just recovering from a bad situation," said Rader.
While GSM dealt with first-week miscues throughout the first half, Pickford took advantage, building the lead to 32-0 before the Snowbirds answered. By the time the score reached 40-6, the Panthers had all but sealed the game.
Tommy Storey ran for 140 yards, threw for 106 yards and totaled four touchdowns in the Panthers' victory. Gunner Bennin had 56 yards receiving, 63 yards on returns and two total TDs.
For GSM, Daniel Jacobson 69 yards and a TD while Dillon Croff finished with 94 yards and a TD.
Here are two takeaways from the week one, 8-player football matchup:
Tommy Storey is the real deal
Pickford had two quarterbacks they used interchangeably, but when things were going well, it was usually in junior Tommy Storey's hands.
The Panthers' signal caller had his hands all over the week one victory, rushing for over 100 yards and two touchdowns while passing for another 100 yards and two more TDs. He also capped five scoring drives with two-point conversions, four on the ground and one through the air.
"He runs hard, he's slippery, and he has a mindset that no one person can take him down," St. Mary's head coach Kevin O'Connell said. "And it was true, no one person did bring him down."
Croff, St. Mary's offense starts slow, hole too big to climb
The GSM offense struggled to find its footing early on, failing on fourth down tries on their first two drives, while the defense started equally slow, allowing back-to-back long touchdown drives following those early turnovers.
When the Snowbirds finally punted when their third drive stalled, Pickford responded as Gunner Bennin returned the kick 56 yards to the house, pushing the Panthers lead to 24-0 and putting the Snowbirds in a deep hole in the first half.
Second-half adjustments helped, as Dillon Croff, Daniel Jacobson and Jake Butler all found the endzone in the fourth quarter, but it was too little, too late for the Snowbirds to make any kind of run to get back into the game.
"I don't know why it took us 36 minutes to start pounding the rock, that's what's so frustrating," said O'Connell. "All the credit goes to Pickford though; they punched us in the mouth and we didn't have a plan."
Contact Sports Editor Dylan Jespersen at Djespersen@gaylordheraldtimes.com. Follow him on Twitter, @dylanjespersen, and Instagram, @dylanjespersen
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Two takeaways from the Pickford Panthers football victory over Gaylord St. Mary
