After last Friday’s heart breaking loss, the first of the season, to Eudora, Paola bounced back with a 48-12 beat down of the St. James Academy Thunder from Lenexa.

                Paola scored quickly on an eight play, 80 yard drive. The drive took up the first two minutes and 51 seconds and was capped off by a one yard touchdown run by senior Tyler Henness.

                St. James answered back with a 15 play drive eating up seven minutes. After a nine yard touchdown pass, the Thunder failed to make the two-point conversion.

                Paola dominated the ground game running for 418 yards while only giving up 197 yards. Senior Tyler Hieber felt Paola won the game with its offense. “Offensively we took the game over, not anything more,” Hieber said. St. James did add 104 yards through the air and dominated the time of possession with its long drives.

                Paola was able to prevent St. James from scoring by forcing turnovers near the red zone. These turnovers really took the boom out of the Thunder because it prevented them from gaining any momentum.

                Paola forced five turnovers, three interceptions and two fumbles, which allowed them to work with a short field making it easier to score.

                The game was overshadowed by the unsportsman like play of St. James. The Thunder had multiple personal foul penalties for late hits or for saying something unneeded.

Scoring Plays for Paola

• Henness 1 yard touchdown run capping off a 8 play, 80 yard drive
• Kern 2 yard touchdown run capping off a 6 play, 67 yard drive
• Kern 1 yard touchdown run capping off a 6 play, 40 yard drive
• Staats 53 yard touchdown run capping off a 1 play, 53 yard drive
• Henness 9 yard touchdown run capping off a 2 play, 48 yard drive
• Staats 29 yard touchdown run capping off a 2 play, 34 yard drive
• Henness 58 yard touchdown run capping off a 5 play, 80 yard drive