Panthers Spoil St. Louis Park's Homecoming

It wasn’t a Homecoming game to remember on Friday night in .

Playing against another “SLP”—the Panthers from Spring Lake Park—the Orioles offense sputtered and the defense couldn’t contain Spring Lake Park on the ground, as the visitors pounded their way to a 34-6 victory.

At first, it looked like the game would be a lot closer. After Spring Lake Park tallied the contest’s first points on a touchdown midway through the first quarter, St. Louis Park answered back with a scoring drive of its own, capped off by a big fourth down touchdown pass from senior Jacolbi Courington-Meier to junior DJ Pollard. A missed extra point left the game at 7-6 in favor of Spring Lake Park, which was the score after the first quarter.

That was as close as the Orioles would get. A pivotal second quarter saw Spring Lake Park put two more touchdowns on the board, extending the lead to 21-6 at halftime. The second half brought more of the same, as the Panthers scored two more touchdowns to put the game away at 34-6.

St. Louis Park’s undoing might have been its running game, or, more precisely, the lack thereof. The Orioles tallied a total of 10 yards on 21 carries. Courington-Meier, who is normally an explosive dual-threat quarterback, could only muster four yards on 12 carries. He did rack up 169 yards through the air, but the senior wasn’t very accurate, going 12-26. Courington-Meier also threw one interception.

While the Orioles struggled on the ground, their defense struggled to stop Spring Lake Park’s own rushing attack. The Panthers rolled to 276 rushing yards. Spring Lake Park was so good on the ground that quarterback Brandon Jones threw only 12 passes all night, netting 77 yards.

The bruising Panthers also knocked St. Louis Park senior cornerback Perreon Snow out of the game with an injury early in the first quarter. Snow was seen in street clothes on the sidelines later in the game. His status for next week in unknown.

St. Louis Park’s next game will be against crosstown rival . That game will be at BSM on Saturday, Oct. 1. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m.