Nick Shriver, Big Lake’s third year head coach, has got his team playing inspired football.

After scoring a school record 76 points in their first week of play against DeLaSalle (Shriver’s alma mater), the Hornets traveled to Spectrum HS and clobbered the Sting, 46-20 last Friday night.

Shriver, prior to coming to Big Lake, was the head coach for two years in South Dakota. But he knows its not just all him that is driving the program to success.

“We’ve been fortunate to retain a lot of our assistant coaches over the past couple of seasons, which has allowed us to continue to build upon the foundation that has been built,” he said. “We vertically align our system from the youth association level through varsity, so this is also year three in the system for most of our players as well.”

Shriver added three new varsity coaches for this year’s team including,  Roger Velasquez - Varsity Defensive Coordinator; Erique Determan - Varsity Linebackers and  Zack Pawtraw - Varsity Receivers.

Against Spectrum, Montell Hester got the Hornets on the board first when he sprinted into the end zone from 11 yards out. The two-point conversion was successful and the road team held an 8-0 lead early Friday night.

QB Dillon Spaeth would later complete an incredible 42 yard TD and finished the game seven-of-11 for 115 yards and two touchdowns. But it was the Hornet rushing attack that accounted for much of the action at the Spectrum  Athletic Complex.

Big Lake amassed 368 yards on the ground, averaging nearly nine yards a carry. They finished the game with 445 yards total compared to just 239 for Spectrum.

The Hornets put up 24 points in the first quarter and 14 in the second to pound out a 38-12 lead heading into the second half. 

They coasted from there.

With the win. the Hornets improved to 2-0 on the young season and played Orono at home Friday night, which will be a supreme test. Orono, who had defeated the defending state champion Becker Bulldogs in their opening game, fell to 1-1 on the season after the loss to Byron last weekend by a score of 32-13.

“Our schedule is great,” said Shriver. “With the move to section-based schedules we will get to play every team in our section during the regular season: Orono, Delano, Westonka, Zimmerman, and Providence. In addition to those teams, we play(ed) DeLaSalle, Spectrum, and Willmar. Providence, DeLaSalle, and Spectrum are brand new opponents for us.”