Raider's three TDs lead 28-6 rout of Chiefs on MFL Night No. 2

Returning McCook Football League star Gus Smith (25) was putting stiff-arm moves on Chiefs tackles and delivering plenty of punishment in Thursday’s McCook Football League season opener at Weiland Field.

Steve Towery/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — Gus Smith covered 110 yards on his three touchdown runs and the Raiders ruled Thursday’s MFL opener over the Chiefs, 28-6, at Weiland Field.

The Raiders (1-0) were clearly most domiant among MFL teams through two evenings.

No other squad scored more than 14 points in a contest Wednesday or Thursday.

The Raiders were plowing through or over Chiefs (above) during a dominating 28-6 win which finished one night of McCook Football League seventh and eighth-grade action at Weiland Field Thursday. The Chiefs kept fighting for yards as Beau Bednar (below) tries to weave around Raiders defender Henry Blecha. Among four MFL season openers, no other team except the Raiders won by more than one TD. The fifth and sixth graders return to Weiland Field tonight. Cowboys and Commanders collide at 7 p.m. followed by a Rams-Eagles showdown set for 8 p.m.

Maryann Kassner/McCook Gazette

The Raiders scored 16 before one quarter was finished in this seventh-eighth grade season debut.

Smith dashed into the clear for 38 yards on his first TD, and Abel Wilson found Cooper Rupp for a two-point pass making it 8-0.

Smith smashed seven yards into the end zone again, but Wilson used his own legs to run into two more points.

Maryann Kassner/McCook Gazette

The 16-0 Raider edge lasted through halftime.

Wilson kicked off the second half with his own four-yard touchdown gallop.

The Chiefs’ defense did respond in quarter fou when Mason Loomis picked off a Raider pas and ran 50 yards to pigskin paradise. Yet an even longer Smith run covering 65 yards finished game one.