Mental Mistakes Can’t Stop Sandpoint Despite Penalties, Bulldogs Still Have Enough To Down Lakeland

Not everything worked to perfection for the Sandpoint High School football team Friday.

What did work, though, was more than enough - and too much for the Lakeland Hawks to handle.

When the yellow hankies weren’t on the field, Sandpoint’s offense and defensive fronts had their way, 41-21, in a non-league game at Corbit Field.

Sandpoint’s propensity for major penalties, especially in the second half, kept the final score relatively respectable.

Sandpoint coach Satini Puailoa wondered what the final score would have been had his team showed more discipline.

“The only thing that stopped us was penalties,” said Puailoa, whose team improved to 2-0. “But it was sloppy. Could you imagine the score if we weren’t sloppy.”

Sandpoint stalled itself with 11 of its 16 penalties in the second half. The total sum of the infractions was 163 yards.

The Bulldogs coaches, though, will enjoy most of the video they review.

Lakeland’s best drive came on the game’s opening series. The Hawks, who weren’t able to mount any rushing attack, used five passes from quarterback Kurt Reese out of the seven-play series to march 66 yards. The Hawks found the end zone when Reese hit Brian Schaeffer on a 14-yard out pattern.

Sandpoint stalled on its first two possessions. Then the Bulldogs took advantage of a fumble recovery by Joe West at the Lakeland 35-yard line.

On the first play, quarterback Paul Nieman evened the score at 7 when he hit a streaking Caleb Bowman on a deep post behind the Lakeland secondary.

Sandpoint took the lead for good after a shanked punt by the Hawks set the Bulldogs up at the Hawks 33.

Lakeland (0-1-1) kept Sandpoint from a touchdown, but Bulldogs placekicker Matt Lindgren booted a 33-yard field goal 44 seconds into the second quarter.

That’s when Sandpoint’s front three of West (6-foot-4, 270 pounds), Matt Smith (6-4, 240) and Stefon Kleinert (6-6, 225) took over with a little help from some blitzing linebackers.

Sandpoint sacked Reese eight times, and Kleinert and linebacker Chris Harris were in on three sacks each.

“They did a few things up front to us,” Lakeland coach Terry Kiefer said. “I don’t know if it was our (running) backs not blocking or our linemen not blocking or what. We made some mistakes. It’s immaterial who (made them). It’s Lakeland; it’s the team. You just have to give Sandpoint a lot of credit because they did some things that screwed us up.”

Lakeland pulled within 17-14 with 4:14 left in the first half when Reese hit Dan Ross on a short hitch. Ross turned a 4-yard pass into an 80-yard gain when he broke an attempted ankle tackle by Travis Knaggs and outsprinted the Bulldogs for a TD.

But if Lakeland did anything wrong in that situation it was scoring too quickly.

Sandpoint responded by driving 74 yards and scoring on a Nieman sneak from 1 yard out. The Bulldogs led 24-14 at halftime.

Bowman opened the second half by returning the kickoff 89 yards for a TD to put the game out of reach.

Bulldogs tailback Kurt Burkley, seemingly picking up where Jeremy Thielbahr left off last year, rushed for 184 yards on 25 carries.

Sandpoint 41, Lakeland 21

Sandpoint 7 17 10 7 -41

Lakeland 7 7 0 7 -21

L-Schaeffer 14 pass from Reese (T. Van Valin kick) S-Bowman 35 pass from Nieman (Lindgren kick) S-Lindgren 33 FG S-Nieman 10 run (Lindgren kick) L-Ross 80 pass from Reese (T. Van Valin kick) S-Nieman 1 run (Lindgren kick) S-Bowman 89 kickoff return (Lindgren kick) S-Lindgren 40 FG S-Jackson 2 run (Lindgren kick) L-Rasor 9 run (T. Van Valin kick)

, DataTimes