It was homecoming at Stanwood last Friday night and the Oak Harbor Wildcats made sure it was not a night to remember for the Spartans, blowing open a tight game with a 34-0 second half to take the WesCo North contest 44-7.
The first half saw the Cats jump out to a 10-0 lead and looking to put away the Spartans who entered with a 2-3 record. But Stanwood gave every indication of this being a much closer game than most people counted on.
A one-yard Lenny Serfling run and a 23-yard field goal by Chad Asmus had the Cats thinking blowout. But Stanwood cut it to 10-7 and stymied each Wildcat drive before intermission.
Any thoughts of an upset were laid to rest quickly after the teams returned from the locker rooms. The Cats scored 21 points in the third quarter to put the Spartans away.
“After halftime we improved our intensity,” said head coach Dave Ward. “We got going with some positive encouragement and emotion generated by a coach or two.”
Grant Bull got it started with a touchdown run from a yard out. Serfling kept it going with two big plays, the first a 51-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Veach and the second a 54-yard scoring pass to Bull.
The scoring onslaught continued into the fourth quarter as Serfling again went up top for a 30-yard touchdown pass to John Lobbestael. Moments later Lobbestael switched to quarterback and closed out the scoring when he hit Veach on a 32-yard touchdown pass.
Serfling had another strong outing, connecting on 10 of 18 passes for 268 yards and the three TD passes. Coach Ward said it was a school record in passing yardage as best he can determine.
The Wildcats rolled up more than 500 yards in offense rushing with a nice balance between the pass and run. Oak Harbor threw for 308 yards and rushed for 210. Blake Ward was the top individual ball carrier in the varied attack, gaining 42 yards in 12 carries.
Ryan Lang led the defense with 10 solo tackles. Stanwood managed only 126 total yards on offense, of which only 31 came on the ground.
The league schedule closes out this Friday when winless Monroe comes to Memorial Stadium for a 7:30 tilt and the final regular season home game of the season. The final regular season game will be Thursday, Nov. 12, at Juanita.
