The ACGC football team opened up their third season at Jarman Field in Guthrie Center last night. Unfortunately, the home team was unable to find the end zone as IKM-Manning rolled to a 35-0 victory over the Chargers.

The Wolves scored a touchdown on each of their opening four possessions. Senior fullback Stephen Grimm, who rushed for over 1,000 yards last season, took his first trip to the end zone in the first quarter after a 44-yard dump pass from sophomore quarterback Kyler Rasmussen. Grimm followed that up with a 13 yard touchdown run to extend the lead to 14 heading into the second quarter.

Following a Bryce Littler fumble which was recovered at the Charger one-yard line, IKM senior running back Nathan Blankman punched in his first of the night to extend the lead to 21. Blankman and freshman Amos Rasmussen would add a 40-yard scamper each to push the score to 35.

ACGC couldn’t quite put together a rhythm, though they had some chances. The gold and black found themselves inside the IKM 20 twice, but costly penalties pushed them back. First-year head coach Cody Matthewson says many of the miscues could be attributed to last minute adjustments, including a change at center.

“We had Michael Ure, who had been our center all pre-season. He’s been kind of struggling with an ankle injury. Moved Flavio (Gonzales) who’s a tight end for us. A guy who never played center before…There is some miscues but I think as we saw the game went on we kind of got relaxed and started understanding what we could do.”

Freshman Gavin Cornielson delivered the best performance of the night, rushing for 59 yards and nearly crossing the goal line as time expired. Senior Ben Kingery also delivered a strong performance with 56 rushing yards and classmate Spencer Grove also tallied 31 before being helped off the field with a left knee injury.

The Chargers will look to bounce back next Friday at Woodward Academy.