There was no slowing West Liberty-Salem’s football team Friday as it rolled past visiting Riverside 59-0 in a local non-league battle.

The Tigers remain unbeaten at 3-0, while the Pirates fall to 1-2.

WL-Salem has been racking up yardage on offense. This time the Tigers finished with 290 yards of total offense. Head coach Toby Smith was pleased to see the offensive production continue against Riverside.

“We executed very well tonight,” said Smith. “Our kids took good control of the game early and that really helped. Once you get momentum it’s a very hard thing to stop and we just continued to ride it throughout the game.

“It was absolutely a team effort tonight,” said Smith. “We did very well on offense, defense and special teams.”

Riverside head coach Tim Doty felt the Tigers’ precision on offense was the difference in the game.

“The biggest thing was West Liberty-Salem came out focused and executed to perfection,” said Doty. “We turned the ball over too much, couldn’t execute and couldn’t rebound after getting down early.

“I told the guys after the game that our goal is to win the Northwest Central Conference and we can still do that. We just have to forget about tonight and move on.”

A mishandled snap led to WL-Salem’s first score. Riverside was deep inside its own territory when the football was snapped over the quarterback’s head and into the end zone. The Tigers’ Austin Wilson recovered the ball to put WL-Salem up 7-0.

Zach Woodruff and Zac Culley had touchdown runs of 14 and 3 yards in the first quarter to make the score 21-0.

In the second quarter, Culley added a 7-yard TD run to boost WL-Salem’s lead to 28-0. The Tigers’ Erik Thomas then booted a 31-yard field goal to make the score 31-0. 

WL-Salem recovered another RHS fumble before halftime. That led to a 6-yard TD pass from Woodruff to Jarred Merrick and a comfortable 38-0 lead for the Tigers at halftime.

The Tigers started the third quarter off with a bang when Michael Mack returned the opening kickoff 90 yards to pay dirt. That increased the score to 44-0. 

Another turnover by the Pirates saw WL-Salem’s Collin Link recover a fumble and take it nine yards to the end zone.

Woodrfuff threw for 127 yards to lead the Tiger offense. Culley led the ground game with 79 yards and Merrick rushed for 39 yards and had 28 yards receiving. Jake Anderson added 33 yards receiving and Zach Konkle had one catch for 30 yards.

 Defensively for the Tigers, Link had 11 tackles and Jeff Dill added 11 tackles and two sacks.

For Riverside, the running attack saw Gunner Whitaker record 41 yards, Joseph Coulson with 30 and Corey Vonderhuevel with 28.

Defensively for the Pirates, Mike Seeling had six tackles and Jessie Kite and Kyle Baughman each had five tackles. Jared Holycross added a fumble recovery.

WL-Salem has another local battle on Friday when it begins Ohio Heritage Conference play at Triad. Riverside also begins league action when it hosts Fairbanks in a Northwest Central Conference matchup.

  West Liberty 59, Riverside 0

Riverside 0 0 0 0 – 0

West Liberty 21 17 21 0 – 59

TEAM STATISTICS RIV WLS

First downs 9        15

Total net yards       138   290

Rushes/yards   44/101    26/163

Passing            37      127

Comp-att-int         6-11-0    7-11-0

Punts/avg        7/30      1/29

Fumbles-lost        8-3   1-1

Penalties-yards      0-0  4-22