LYLE – The Goodhue Wildcats romped over Lyle/Pacelli in the quarterfinals of the Section 1A playoffs here Tuesday night.

Wednesday, October 25, 2000

LYLE – The Goodhue Wildcats romped over Lyle/Pacelli in the quarterfinals of the Section 1A playoffs here Tuesday night. Goodhue took off after a 62-yard punt return by Brad Roschen midway through the second quarter. They went on to score 30 points by halftime and added a touchdown a minute in the first three minutes of the second half on their way to a 57-0 win.

"We look to do good things in the playoffs," Goodhue coach Clair Austin said. "We were four plays away from having a 7-1 season. We had only one turnover tonight and three penalties. If we keep that up we could go far in the playoffs. It had to be a tough transition for them to go from nine-man to 11-man."

"Goodhue is a good team," L/P coach Mark Buntje said. "Moving up to play 11-man ball after playing nine-man was an adjustment and we were out of synch but even bigger may have been the size of the field (13 yards wider). We played hard but got tired. They wore us down."

In the early going it looked like L/P running back Cory Ransom could well have been on his way to a 1,000-yard season. He came into the game with just more than 900 yards rushing. In L/P’s first three plays he got the call and picked up 15 yards and a first down at the L/P 35-yard line. He then gained two more yards on his next carry but dropped a pitch and lost five yards and things went down hill from there. For the rest of the evening Ransom gained only 16 yards on the ground. As a team L/Phad a total of 31 rushing yards and 19 passing yards on the night.

In its first drive Goodhue showed it could move the ball on the ground going 53 yards on 11 running plays for a score. Nate Ryan put the ball in from three yards out. The Wildcats were stopped by a couple penalties in their second drive and at the end of the first quarter L/P was still looking good trailing only 6-0.

After an interception Goodhue went 43 yards in seven plays for its second score, an 11-yard pass from Derek Roschen to Scott Frederixon. The next time they touched the ball it was Brad Roschen going 62 yards for a punt return TD.

"That punt return took the air out of us," coach Buntje said.

Ryan scored on a 16-yard run to close out the first half scoring. He then started the second half with an 80-yard romp on a sweep right on the first play from scrimmage. Ryan picked up 179 yards on 18 carries in the game. As a team the Wildcats had 352 total yards.

Two L/P turnovers led to two more Goodhue touchdowns with 21 minutes to play. After an L/P fumble the Wildcats went 16 yards on three plays for a score. Then Brett Voth intercepted a Danny Greibrok pass and returned it 28 yards for a TD. After the extra point kick Goodhue was leading 50-0.

Greibrok was 5-of-12 for 19 yards with two interceptions in the game.

"It was a good year for us with a 5-4 record and a third place finish in the Conference," Buntje said. "This is a good bunch of kids."