Prince Avenue Christian cruises past FPD

BOGART -- Trailing by 14 points, FPD had a chance to get back into Friday's game against Prince Avenue Christian with about five minutes left in the second quarter.

With the Wolverines backed up to their own 5-yard line in a second-and-20 situation, FPD had a chance to stop Prince Avenue Christian and get some good field position. Instead, fullback Zack Ragle gashed the Vikings for a 65-yard run. The next play was a 30-yard touchdown pass that effectively put the game out of reach for FPD.

That was the story in FPD's 41-7 loss to the Wolverines (11-0) on Friday night. Just when it had a chance to make something happen, FPD (6-5) just couldn't find ways to capitalize.

"We never really slowed them down," FPD head coach Greg Moore said. "We made too many mistakes when we had the ball early. It just kind of snowballed in a hurry. We dug a pretty big hole. ... I wouldn't take anything away from them. They're going to make a bunch of noise in this thing before it's over with."

A lot of the credit goes to a potent Prince Avenue Christian rushing attack. The Wolverines ran for 314 yards on 42 carries with the help of 10 different ballcarriers.

"They've been gashing folks all year long," Moore said. "I don't know, they cause a lot of problems on offense. They do a good job of spreading the wealth, so to speak. The ball goes outside; the ball comes inside. There's a lot of counter action, they're very difficult to deal with."

The Vikings' offense didn't help the defense out early. On the first drive of the game, which ended in a three-and-out, an awkward snap and an free defender coming off the right edge forced FPD punter Daniel Weaver to have to throw the ball. The play ended up putting Prince Avenue Christian on the Vikings' 5-yard line for an easy one-play drive ending in a touchdown.

There were a handful of other situations later when Moore opted to go for it on fourth down and was unable to convert.

"We felt like coming into the ballgame when we got those short yardage chances, we had to do whatever we could to try to convert them," Moore said. "They did a good job stopping us a couple times early, and those were big plays when they happened."

Outside of that, the FPD offense did find limited success moving the ball but struggled once it crossed the 50. Ultimately, the 102 total rushing yards weren't enough to put many points on the board for the Vikings.

"They stopped the midline," Weaver said. "They clogged up the holes, had a bunch of big guys up in the middle that could stop the run."

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Prince Avenue Christian cruises past FPD ."