The Racine Raiders were rusty on Saturday night but still managed to shut out the Capital City (DC) Seahawks, 23-0, at Historic Horlick Athletic Field in Racine. The Raiders improved to 2-0 on the season and in the Gridiron Developmental Football League (GDFL) this season. Capital City fell to 1-1 on the season and the game didn’t count as a GDFL game for them.
The Raiders defense and special teams sparked the team to the win. The Raiders defense allowed Capital City just 91 total yards and held the Seahawks to 2-of-15 on third down conversion attempts. The Raiders got interceptions from Channing Schultz and Najee Parker and sacked the Capital City quarterbacks three times. Gary Young paced Racine with 15 tackles, 2-1/2 tackles for loss, a sack, and a pass defensed and was named the Jersey Mike’s Subs player of the game.
The special teams had two big returns by Joe Garcia and a long kickoff return from Jordan Payne. Garcia’s first punt return early in the first quarter, set up a Howard Triplett 16-yard touchdown run to give the Raiders a 7-0 lead which they’d take into halftime.
The Raiders offense struggled in the win. The ground game was effective as Triplett went over 100 yards on the ground with two touchdowns and the Raiders ground game averaged 4.3 yards-per-carry. Tom Benko rushed for a touchdown for Racine as well.
The passing game struggled mightily between dropped passes and interceptions. The Raiders turned the ball over four times on interceptions and lost one of four fumbles, all of which came on bad snaps. Andre Locke started for Racine and Mitch Farr and Sawyer Schick also saw some time at quarterback. Combined, they went 9-22 for 59 yards.
The game was sloppy with the teams combining for 35 penalties for 301 total yards. Racine and Capital City combined for 279 offensive yards in the game.
The Raiders have a bye week for the Memorial Day weekend before hosting the St. Paul (MN) Pioneers on June 3. The Raiders will be making their second attempt at hosting Education Appreciation Night and honoring their four scholarship recipients. The team is also teaming up with D.W. Davies and Company to see which high school east of I-94 can sell the most online tickets for the game. The winning high school will win $500 from D.W. Davies and Company.
Official Game Stats: https://stats.digitalscout.com/football/boys/game/16228884
