Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor

Except for the aggressive mosquitoes that began to appear as the sun went down, Friday evening was a beautiful example of late summer in Minnesota. Oh, and that 56-7 Cretin-Derham Hall victory over the Forest Lake football team wasn’t exactly ideal for Ranger fans, but it sure was a nice night...in terms of weather.

How quickly did Forest Lake lose control of its home-field advantage?

a) The kick-off

b) The first play from scrimmage

c) Five minutes into the first quarter

d) All of the above

There are no wrong answers here, which illustrates how the first game of the season didn’t go from bad to worse, but rather skipped over bad, paused at worse, and dozed off in a nightmarish, 'Is this really happening?' slumber.

For those who answered a):

Forest Lake kicked off to No. 2 ranked Cretin and the ball was promptly returned to the Rangers’ 24-yard line.

For those who answered b):

On the first play from scrimmage, the Raiders’ highly touted wide receiver, Michael Floyd, came behind quarterback John Nance, took a handoff from the Gopher recruit, and then threw a touchdown pass to Shady Salamon to make it 7-0.

Only 27 seconds had ticked off the clock.

For those who answered c):

After Floyd and Nance hooked up on a 42-yard pass to set up Salamon’s 1-yard touchdown plunge for what would turn out to be the game-winner, the Cretin-Derham Hall defense started scoring.

“Obviously we knew their offense would be good, but their defense was good as well,” Forest Lake head coach Matt Cleary said a few days after the debacle.

“On the flip side, when we executed and ran the option the way we were supposed to, and made the right reads, I was pleasantly surprised to watch film at how well we were able to move the ball — whether it be two plays in a row or five plays in a row, before we shot ourselves in the foot.”

The Rangers had entered Raiders territory, when on a second-and-six, Forest Lake quarterback Mike Schultz lost the ball. Cretin’s Harry Pitera scooped up the mistake and ran it 67 yards for the touchdown. The score was 21-0 with more than eight minutes remaining in the first quarter.

It’s almost hard to believe a boxscore that shows CDH putting up 35 points in the opening 12 minutes alone, and it didn’t get much better in the second quarter.

Salamon, another University of Minnesota recruit, rolled in for his fourth and final touchdown of the game to end the first quarter, giving the Rangers the ball at their own 20-yard line after the ensuing kick-off.

Schultz dropped back to pass and his attempt was intercepted by DaVonte Davis and returned for the Raiders sixth touchdown in a matter of 12 minutes and four seconds.

It wasn’t until Forest Lake was down 49-0 that the Rangers found a glimmer of offense, when running back Dillon Grant took one around the outside in front of Cretin’s bench. Sixty-two yards later, Grant was in the end zone for the Rangers only touchdown of the night.

There might have been an audible sigh of relief from the Forest Lake stands, but the feeling that the Cretin was slowing down ended with under a minute left in the first half. The Raiders back-up running back, Marcus Binns, burst through a large opening and didn’t stop until he scored on a 75-yard touchdown run.

One of the few positive aspects came with the fact that Cretin-Derham Hall’s offense was finished scoring at this point. Regrettably, so was Forest Lake’s, as the second half would come and go, but the lopsided numbers would remain, 56-7.

Now the Rangers travel to Bloomington-Kennedy for their first road game of the fall. Kennedy isn’t the national power Cretin is, but they expect to have one of their best teams in years. Eighteen starters return for the Eagles, who went 3-7 in 2006.

Cleary doesn’t expect Kennedy to be as fast, active, physical or big as Cretin-Derham Hall, so he looks for his speedy offense to reach the corner more frequently than last Friday.

“I think it will be a little bit more enjoyable for everyone involved,” he said.

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