Stoll’s monster first half carries Sandpoint past Lakeland

SANDPOINT – Kurt Stoll pretty much ran the leg right off of Matt Lawrence.

The Sandpoint junior ran for 251 yards on 18 first-half carries and scored five touchdowns before intermission to spark the Bulldogs to a 53-7 victory over Lakeland at War Memorial Field on Friday.

The victory means Sandpoint (4-4 overall, 2-3 in the Inland Empire League) controls its own playoff fate after going to 2-0 against the league’s Class 4A teams.

Stoll, who made only a cameo appearance in the second half, finished with 340 yards on 18 carries.

“Kurt had a great game, but to tell you the truth, I was more impressed with him last week against Moscow,” Sandpoint coach Sean Dorris said. “He was running hard for us while we were trying to come back.”

Stoll agreed.

“It’s different running when you have a lead like we did tonight,” he said.

But the burden of kicking extra points following eight touchdowns proved to be too much for Lawrence’s tender quadriceps muscle.

After converting on the team’s first four PAT attempts, the sophomore misfired on two of three kick attempts and was sacked following a bad snap on the fourth.

“That was a lot of kicking duty for Matt,” Dorris said.

“He’s OK once he gets on the field and he’s one of those kids where, once the ball’s snapped, he doesn’t feel a thing.”

Sandpoint’s victory was sparked by quality play from the team’s offensive and defensive lines.

The Bulldogs’ offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage, sealing the point of attack and allowing Stoll to hit the Lakeland secondary at full speed.

“That’s the way we practiced it and that’s the way we played tonight,” the junior said. “I don’t think one of their linemen touched me all night.”

Stoll raced 44 yards on Sandpoint’s first play from scrimmage and never looked back.

He had two runs of more than 60 yards and six runs of 20 yards or more.

Defensively, the Bulldogs’ linemen bottlenecked the Lakeland running game, not allowing the Hawks to make a first down until there was less than six minutes remaining in the first half.

“We were able to do a few things, but basically, our defensive linemen were able to do the job against their running game,” Dorris said. “That left our linebackers open to make some plays in the secondary.”

Especially on a key play at the end of the first quarter.

Lakeland attempted to set up a screen pass from its own 24 in the final 30 seconds.

Lawrence read the pass perfectly and jumped the route, picking off the ball at the 19 and scoring to give Sandpoint a 28-0 advantage.

“The important thing was that we control our own destiny,” Dorris told his players after the game.

“We win Thursday and we could host the first two playoff games.”