“One game at a time,”  “One game at a time,” seniors Jake Richardson (MA) and Dalante Peyton echoed after SMB Wolpfack’s 44-7 win over Saint Paul Como Park. The win brought the Wolfpack 2 wins away from a perfect regular season, and the message was clear after the game, “One game at a time.”

The Wolfpack came out of the gates quickly once again by putting 21 points up on the scoreboard in the first quarter. Sophomore Jesper Salverda got his first reception of the season on the first Wolfpack drive on a counter pass from senior Samuel Pickerign (MA) and had open field ahead of him and two defenders chasing him. “I thought they would catch me honestly,” Salverda said, “And they did, but I just stuck my arm back to the defender and just reached for the endzone, and I scored,”. It was a 51 yard catch and run from Slaverda and made the score 7-0. The subsequent Wolfpack drive resulted in the second TD of the game. Senior Michael O’Shea got another reverse, similar to his touchdown two weeks ago, and ran it although down to the one yardline. As he broke the plane, he fumbled, and quarterback Samuel Pickerign fell on the ball in the endzone.

In the second and third quarter, the offense was stagnant, made sloppy plays, and couldn’t move the ball down the field well. The defense also gave up their only touchdown of the night on a 40 yard pass. However, Jake Richardson and special teams were able to maintain the Wolfpack lead. On defense, Richardson was consistently in the backfield, blowing up plays.

His best play of the night came in the third quarter, two snaps after he had a roughing the passer penalty called on him, when Richardson broke through the offensive line and had the Cougar QB on the run. “That sack was not really supposed to happen,” he said after the game, “I was just trying to chase him to the other defender and then he stopped, I was like ‘Okay, I’ll sack you’ and it was a little payback for the call he got,”.

On special teams, Richardson blocked a punt in the third quarter, and laid the punter out in the first quarter to spring junior Will Bean (Blake) for a 66 yard punt return touchdown. “Special teams was a focus in practice this week for sure,” Richardson said, “Coach said that we have to beat them on special teams to win the game, and I’m pretty sure that it’s obvious that we did that.”

In the fourth quarter the offense came back to life. They managed to score two offensive touchdowns, a two yard run from senior Michael O’Shea and a 33 yard run from junior Nick Hernandez. Senior Kyle Salverda said the reason for the dominance in the second half came from the offensive line “Communicating. We weren’t communicating in the first and second quarters, at the half we said we gotta communicate more. We started doing it in the second half and it clicked and we started punching holes.”

The offensive line has been punching holes all season long which has led to the dominant rushing attack from the Wolfpack. “There’s no feeling like punching holes in the defensive lines play after play,” Salverda said, “It is indescribable knowing that your hard work all week is paying off.”

The Wolfpack plays The Breck School this Friday at 7:00 PM at Breck after the Girls Soccer homecoming game. SMB is looking to make their record 7-0, one win away from the perfect season.