By Journal Sports Staff

MANISTIQUE — After an injury-plagued 2017 season, the Ishpeming football team was looking to start this season healthy and on a good note.

The Hematites definitely accomplished that feat Friday night as they pounded Manistique 52-0. Ishpeming scored 38 points in the first quarter and cruised the rest of the way.

“That’s always a good way to start,” Hematites head coach Jeff Olson said. “We jumped on them early, which was good and everybody contributed. We spread the ball around, I think the most carries someone had was seven, so we got a lot of guys involved.”

Ishpeming got the board early in the first quarter on a short touchdown run by Hunter Smith to take a 6-0 lead and followed that up with a 44-yard score from Gavin Sundberg. With a 2-point conversion run from Matt Trawick, the Hematites led 14-0.

The Hematites weren’t done though as Smith scored again with 5:02 remaining in the quarter and with 3:35 left, Sundberg busted loose for a 70-yard touchdown run. Ishpeming then closed out the quarter with a 55-yard touchdown pass from Sundberg to Smith. The Hematites also picked up all three 2-point conversions.

In the second quarter, Ishpeming racked up two more touchdowns, one being an 8-yard run by Otto Swanson and the other one being a 36-yard score from Nolan Corwin.

The Hematites finished with 368 rushing yards, 114 of them coming on Sundberg’s two touchdowns.

Ishpeming hosts Lake Linden-Hubbell on Friday.

Westwood 42, Houghton 0

At Michigan Tech in Houghton, junior Taylor Dellangelo electrified the Patriots by returning the second-half kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown.

Westwood already had a 28-0 lead, though head coach Scott Syrjala wasn’t entirely pleased with the opening half.

“The kids did well, but we didn’t have a (preseason) scrimmage and you could see at the start we were a little shaky,” he said. “But we stopped (Houghton) on their opening drive. I was pretty happy with the defense.”

He wouldn’t go as far as to say his Patriots are in midseason form, but it was a good first game.

“I challenged my kids at halftime,” he said about a few deficiencies, “and I thought our kids responded quite well.

“And we brought in some guys you can call reserves, and they did fantastic.”

Dellangelo finished with two TDs and 112 yards rushing in 12 attempts.

As a team, Westwood outrushed Houghton 375-40, and just for good measure, outgained the Gremlins 52-6 through the air. Houghton was just 1 of 8 passing that included a Dellangelo interception.

Pats senior quarterback Nathan Beckman was 6 of 9 passing without a pickoff.

Senior Ashton Bergman, who scored a TD and a two-point conversion, led all ball carriers with 121 yards in nine tries, while Beckman had 83 yards on just four attempts as he had two rushing TDs and two 2-pointers.

Westwood’s other TD came on a run by sophomore Garrett Mann.

West Iron County 14,

Munising 0

At Iron River, the Wykons used some stiff defense and took advantage of some key errors to stifle the Mustangs.

“It was a dogfight,” WIC head coach Mike Berutti said. “Our defense played extremely well. “This time of year, defenses are way ahead of the offenses.”

For Munising head coach Jeff Seaberg, the game came down to mistakes.

“We had a couple turnovers and some costly penalties that hurt us,” he said. “So we have some things to clean up.

“Our defense did pretty well and they (the Wykons) had few sustained drives. There’s lots of room for improvement, but we only gave up 14 points to a good team.”

Noah Thomson helped set up WIC’s first touchdown when he recovered a fumble at the Mustangs’ 19 yard line. WIC quarterback Trey Bociek later plunged over the goal line from the 1 and Bryant Schram ran the ball in for the two-point conversion.

In the fourth quarter, on 4th and 3 from the Mustangs 22, the Wykons’ Zach Quintero executed a double hand-off for their second touchdown.

Munising plays at Norway Friday, while WIC heads to Bark River-Harris.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Writer Ryan Stieg and Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee with contributions from the Iron Mountain Daily News. Their email address is sports@miningjournal.net.