Tigers fall on road to Clarinda

The Red Oak football team continues its search for its first points and first victory of the season after a 46-0 setback at Clarinda Friday.
The Tigers (0-2), who were shut out 13-0 in last week’s opener, struggled to sustain drives as the Cardinals (2-0) jumped out to a 24-0 lead after a quarter in the win.
“We played hard, the kids kept fighting,” said Red Oak Coach Michael Nordeen. “We have to find out what works on offense and keep grinding with that and we have some special teams issues to shore up. And defensively, we only gave up 200 yards of offense, but we put them (his defense) in tough situations.
“We went for it on fourth down a lot. I told the defense we were going to put them in some situations and some adversity with short fields. Hopefully, down the road, that will pay off in the long run.”
Offensively, the Tigers could never quite get clicking. They were 0-for-4 on fourth down and 1-of-13 on third down in the game while turning it over three times. The run game was limited to four net yards rushing on 28 carries due to sacks and tackles for loss. Last year’s leading rusher Adam Baier was limited to 27 yards on seven carries.
“I told the offensive coaches we needed to find something that works,” Nordeen said. “We tried moving Adam (Baier) around and use him as a decoy, maybe we tried to use him as a decoy too much. But I think we need to get the ball in his hands more and let him make some plays.”
The Cardinals finished with 210 total yards. Quarterback Noah Harris completed 9-of-13 passes for 96 yards and two touchdowns. Dominick Polsley carried 15 times for 84 yards and touchdown.
A bright spot for Nordeen continues to be his defense. Through two weeks they are allowing less that 250 yards per game and four yards per rush despite losing the field position battle.
“We need to find the same confidence for our offense,” Nordeen said. “We need to get that first touchdown, that first score and that confidence builds from there. I told them at halftime let’s forget these first six quarters and let’s go battle and turn this around in the second half. We held them to two second half scores and we got in the red zone a few times. They were more physical than us and we know we’re probably not playing a team as physical as them the rest of the year.”
Baier paced the defense with 12.5 tackles, including 10 solo stops. Andrew Johnson had seven tackles and the Tigers’ lone sack. Nolan Perrien had three solo tackles and recovered a fumble.
Red Oak heads back out on the road to face West Central Valley (2-0) Friday in Stuart.