Football suffers one-sided loss

The UW-River Falls Falcons took to the home gridiron against the UW-Oshkosh Titans Saturday night, looking to begin WIAC play with a win. Unfortunately the Titans proved too much to handle.

The Titans traveled to River Falls with a 3-2 overall and 1-1 in WIAC, and took it to the Falcons winning the game 24-0.

The game was close through the first half — the Falcons entered halftime only down by 10.

At 6:51 of the first quarter, Titan Andy Moriarty ran the ball three yards, and Lucas Raschke kicked to give the Titans a 7-0 lead.

The score stayed that way until 9:53 of the second quarter when Raschke kicked a 36-yard field goal to put his team up 10-0 entering the half.

In the second half the Titans put two more touchdowns on the board, including a 57-yard pass from Joe Patek to Steve Stoltz, and another run by Moriarty to conclude the scoring for the Titans.

The loss brought the Falcons’ record to 1-3 and 0-1 in WIAC.

Josh Grover led the Falcon offense with 113 receiving yards.

“I’m not really a football mastermind,” sophomore Andrew Jacobson said. “But mainly the mental errors — it seems like the mental errors affected us.”

But even though there are mental errors being made, improvements are also being made every week.

“The game in a nutshell is we played a good team,” Assistant Coach Kevin Bullis said. “Our offense moved the ball a lot, but couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone. The quarterback played well and the offensive line did some good things.”

Quarterback Jeremy Wolff passed for 120 yards in the loss.

No WIAC game will ever be a walk in the park for the Falcons.

“We expected a challenge,” Jacobson said. “It was going to be a good game and we were going to have to earn it.”

The first home game was played under the lights for the first time in a number of seasons. Bullis said the atmosphere affected his players, as did what appeared to be a larger than usual crowd.

“We were excited about the atmosphere,” Bullis said. “It was neat to have a night game.”

Players taking part on the field and on the sidelines were excited to be at home.

“It was good to be at home with the fans,” Jacobson said. “We actually had time to get relaxed before the game.”

In the next few weeks, Bullis said the squad is just going to work on fundamentals.

The season doesn’t get any easier as UW-RF is on the road Saturday at UW-Eau Claire to take on the Blugolds at 1 p.m. As of Thursday, the Blugolds have not lost a game this season.

“We want to bounce back and come back mentally strong,” Jacobson said. “We want to win.”

The Falcons return to home action Oct. 14 for a battle with conference foe Stevens Point. Kickoff at Ramer Field is set for 2 p.m.

This season the Falcons only have four home games, while in years past they have had six. Unfortunately for fans, that’s just how scheduling works out.