PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Roughriders didn’t score many style points in Friday night’s home opener against the Forks Spartans.
That didn’t stop them from scoring their second straight win to begin the season and the program’s best start in seven years.
Port Angeles overcame numerous penalties and miscues to top Class 1A Forks 34-0 in a nonleague meeting at Civic Field.
It was the 2A Riders’ second straight shutout victory, giving them two more than they had the past five seasons combined.
Of course, they now have two more wins than all of last fall (0-10 overall) as well.
“Being 2-0 is great. That’s fine,” said first-year Port Angeles coach Tom Wahl.
“But the fact that our defense has held two teams to no scores, that is huge. I love that. That’s what I’m most excited about.”
Rider quarterback Keenan Walker overcame a sluggish start — the junior completed just two of his first 11 passes — to throw for 102 yards and a touchdown on 7-of-22 passing.
Senior fullback Nathan Cristion ran for 82 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries, leading a Rider ground attack that had 239 total yards.
And senior Cody Sullivan scored two of Port Angeles’ third-quarter touchdowns with an 11-yard run and a 59-yard interception.
Sullivan’s final tally allowed the Riders to finally get some breathing room against a game Forks (0-2) team that only trailed 6-0 at halftime.
“We were getting positive reinforcement after the game by the coaches, but it wasn’t all dandelions and daisies,” said Sullivan, who finished with 80 yards of offense. “We know we didn’t play as well as we could have tonight.”
“We had a lot of bad things go wrong.”
A great deal of those things were accompanied by yellow flags.
Port Angeles was penalized 18 times — nine in each half — for 135 yards total. Forks was flagged nine times for 94 yards.
“It will be very interesting to watch the film,” Wahl said. “It wasn’t a poorly called game.
“It was called well, and I’m sure we’re doing some things we need to improve on. We’re definitely not happy with the penalties.”
Two Rider first-half possessions inside the Forks 20-yard line resulted in zero points due in large part to penalties.
A couple of mishandled shotgun snaps also played a role.
Port Angeles’ opening drive — capped by a physical 9-yard touchdown run by Cristion — was the only one to produce points against a resilient Forks defense in the first half.
Just a week earlier, that same young and inexperienced unit gave up 58 points in the first two quarters of a blowout loss to Sequim.
“If you would have told me we’d be down 6-0 at half, I would have taken that,” first-year Spartans coach Andrew Peterson said.
“We gave ourselves a chance to be in the game, and we were in a position where the game was still up in the air to see who wanted to take it.”
Forks’ own offensive troubles, however, kept it from doing so.
The Spartans managed just 120 total yards and six first downs on the game, with penalties and poor field position costing them much of the night.
Quarterback Brian Santman led Forks with 54 yards rushing on nine carries, but completed just 3-of-12 passes for zero yards.
“There were plays there to be made, but we just didn’t step up and make the plays,” Peterson said.
Few big gains
Port Angeles’ 4-4 defense did a good job of bottling up Forks’ top back Luke Brown, who finished with 44 yards in 17 carries.
The senior runner had just three runs of more than five yards. Alexis Ayala’s 18-yard reverse was Forks’ longest gain of the night.
“We’ve all been starting with each other since sophomore year,” Sullivan said of the Rider defense.
“We just have chemistry this year and we know the other man is going to do their job.
“And we like to hit.”
Port Angeles’ offense finally got going in the third quarter as the Riders scored on their first two possessions.
The first, a five-play, 55-yard drive, was capped by an 11-yard misdirection run from Sullivan.
Senior wide receiver Kenneth Sewell ended the Riders’ next drive (four plays, 42 yards) with a 19-yard run on another misdirection for a 20-0 edge.
Sullivan then put the game away on Forks’ next possession, picking off backup quarterback Brady Castellano’s pass and running 59 yards into the end zone with less than four minutes left in the third.
Walker ended the scoring in the fourth with a 24-yard pass to receiver Skyler Gray.
“[The Spartans] are always a scrappy ball club, and they came out and kicked us in the mouth,” Wahl said.
“At halftime I challenged them to go out and have some pride and persevere and show character . . . and just keep chopping.
“They did. I think they recovered. They went out and they chopped away in the second half.”
Port Angeles begins Olympic League play at 3A Bremerton (1-1) next Friday.
Forks, meanwhile, will heads to Hoquiam (1-1) for its first SWL-Evergreen Division contest.
Port Angeles 34, Forks 0
Forks 0 0 0 0– 0
Port Angeles 6 0 21 7– 34
First Quarter
P–Cristion 9 run (kick failed)
Third Quarter
P–Sullivan 5 run (Sewell pass from Walker)
P–Sewell 19 run (kick failed)
P–Sullivan 59 interception return (Bukovnik kick)
Fourth Quarter
P–Gray 24 pass from Walker (Bukovnik kick)
Individual Stats
Rushing– PA: Cristion 11-82, Walker 10-58, Sewell 5-54, Sullivan 6-44, Martin 3-21, Fiscalini 3-0, Adamich 1-(minus 20). F: Santman 9-54, Brown 17-44, Ayala 3-20, Pederson 1-2, Salazar 1-0.
Passing–PA: Walker 7-22-0, 102. F: Santman 3-12-0, 0; 0-3-1, 0.
Receiving–PA: Sullivan 1-36, Ward 4-31, Gray 1-24, Sewell 1-11. F: T. Penn 3-0.