By Journal Sports Staff

ST. IGNACE — The long trip was worth it for the Ishpeming High School football team to clean up its offense.

Head coach Jeff Olson was pleased to defeat St. Ignace 20-14 even though his team’s offense still left a number of points on the field.

“It was kind of similar to what we’ve been doing all year,” Olson said. “We get in the red zone and get penalties or turnovers.”

While that happened to the Hematites (3-5) several times, they also put the game away in the first half of the fourth quarter, scoring a pair of touchdowns to take a 20-6 lead.

“But we did get some penalties twice when we got in the red zone, another time we fumbled it away, then we fumbled it again with a chance to ice the game,” Olson said.

Nevertheless, Ishpeming rolled up 355 yards to just 240 for St. Ignace (1-7).

The lion’s share of the Hematites’ yards — 306 — came on the ground as Hunter Smith rolled up 118 in 20 carries and teammate Zack Jandreau had 103 in 15 tries.

Each scored a fourth-quarter TD, Smith’s 16 yards and Jandreau’s 49. Jandreau also scored from a yard out with 7 seconds remaining on the second-quarter clock.

With Jandreau following up that first score with the 2-point conversion, Ishpeming led 8-6 at halftime.

St. Ignace opened the scoring about midway through the second quarter when Garrett Rickley hit paydirt from 34 yards out. Rickley rushed for 110 of the Saints’ 152 rushing yards.

The Saints also attempted to make a game of it when quarterback Tucker Shepherd found Andy Metz for a 15-yard score with 3:43 remaining. Mason Gustafson’s PAT run made it a 6-point game.

Ishpeming QB Donald Denofre added 49 yards passing, completing 2 of 5 without an interception.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.