ST. CLAIRSVILLE – St. Clairsville welcomed a winless yet still hungry Union Local Jets team Friday to Red Devils Stadium for Senior Night.

The last thing the hosts wanted was to allow the youthful Jets to hang close early and start to believe.

A game St. Clairsville squad was ready for just such a scenario, kept its focus and removed any doubt about which team was going to walk away with a ‘w’ in this game.

The hosts scored on their first play of the game, forced two turnovers and blocked a punt, all in the first 12 minutes that saw UL fall behind 34-0 after one en route to a 62-6 defeat.

“We didn’t do our job at the very beginning of the game and that hurt us and we know against a team like St. Clairsville that you have to execute and you have to execute early and we didn’t,” Union Local head coach Bernie Thompson admitted. “We didn’t play well. But we’re going to take lessons from this game, we’re going to learn and it’s only going to make us better.”

The Jets managed a second quarter touchdown on an 8-yard run from freshman Jakson Price, but those six points were a footnote in the overall picture.

St. Clairsville coach Brett McLean was pleased with his team’s effort, not only on the field but the prior four days this week of practice.

The Red Devils wanted no part of allowing a flicker of hope of an upset start to burn on the visitors sideline, and it showed.

“Our kids had a mature approach this week to practice,” McLean noted as his club improved to 6-2 with a pair of road games remaining to close out the regular season. “We’re trying to get ourselves right and how to be every single game we go on the field. It’s a learning process.

“We have a good senior class, a strong class, but also we’re very youthful in places and sometimes you have to go through some painful things to be the best team we can possibly be.

“That’s what we’re shooting for an I think we took another step toward that this week in how we prepared, and also in how we executed (Friday).”

St. C. forced a three in out to start the game and following a Jets’ punt, took over at its own 46-yard line. The hosts took advantage of a considerable size different in their favor on the right side of the line as the tandem of Ja’von Lyons and Avery Henry blew the four-hole wide open and with Derek Witsberger lead blocking through the game, budding sophomore Jacob Jordan raced 54 yards untouched into the end zone for six.

Following another three-and-out on the next series, Witsberger blocked the UL punt attempt, with the Devils’ recovering deep inside Jets’ territory.

Three plays later, Jordan ripped off another 30-yard run on the exact same play, scampering relatively unscathed into the end zone. Jordan finished with 109 yards on five carries.

“We had that quick hit right away and kept the ball rolling,” McLean said. “Our line got confident and said ‘run behind us and we’ll open some holes.'”

A Will Balgo interception set up Noah Trubiano’s 2-yard score on the next drive, with Tyler Tonkovich connecting with Colin Oberdick from 8 yards out and David Taylor take a 38-yard interception return to the house for six to round out the first quarter scoring.

St. C. sprinkled in just enough of the passing game for balance sake, but it was evident the size advantage up front was propelling the ground game, and the offense, forward.

“We preach effort,” Thompson said. “We understand we’re outmanned. We understand they are bigger than us. But football rewards kids who work hard. We wanted to win the effort game, but I think we did. We need to get better all the way around, from top to bottom, myself included. And we will.”

Price finished with 89 yards to lead the UL offense.

The Devils received a touchdown run from Will Balgo in the second quarter along with an 8-yard hookup from Tonkovich to Carson Woodford. The second half’s running clock saw Mason McCort score on a 1-yard dive in the third with a pair of freshman connecting on the final score, with Andrew Vera hitting Kyle Biery from 12 yards out.

McLean was equally as proud of the effort of his reserve players, who fought on both sides of the ball in the second half and took pride in not allowing UL to get a late touchdown, turning away a potential TD pass in the end zone in the game’s final seconds to thwart a drive.?St. Clairsville hits the road Friday for a matchup with with Fairfield Union before a regular-season finale at Wheeling Central on Halloween Night.

The Jets are back in action Friday as they host a Bellaire team fresh off a big win against Shadyside.