For the second week in a row, an early special teams error set the tone for the game as Goodpasture Christian parlayed the miscue into quick points and never looked back in a 55-0 win over the Moore County Raiders.

While it was the second straight shutout loss for Moore County, the team can take some comfort in that fact that Goodpasture has steamrolled every team in its path this year and is yet to allow a single point in its first three games as they own a 144-0 point differential. They previously beat Glencliff 49-0 and Maplewood 38-0. Meanwhile Moore County was coming off a 35-0 loss to Cascade after opening their season with a 27-7 win over Community.

The game at Goodpasture did not have a good start as a bad snap on Moore County’s first put set the Cougars up in prime real estate. They scored on a 15-yard pass to take a 7-0 lead with nine minutes to go in the first.

It didn’t take long for it to become 14-0 as a Cougar stepped in the way of an Austin Scherff pass and took it to the house for a pick-six with 7:44 to go in the first quarter.

Another punting miscue happened on the next drive as the punter could again not get the punt off, setting the hosts up within the shadows of the goal posts. Goodpasture took advantage with a 15-yard TD and were up 21-0 with 5:55 left in the opening quarter.

Another miscue set up the next Cougar score when the hosts picked off a Raider pass. They scored with 11:30 to go in the second quarter on a touchdown pass.

The first half scoring ended at the 7:09 mark of the second with another touchdown pass for the Cougars making it 35-0.

A running clock greeted the teams in the second as the TSSAA rules requires the clock to constantly run while a team is down 35 or more points. Moore County was also greeted by the Cougar’s second string in the second half and the teams were very competitive until the fourth when the Cougars had a trio of long plays for touchdowns to set the final at 55-0.

For the Raiders, freshman QB Austin Scherff went 8-16 in the air for 25 yards and two interceptions, one a pick six. He ran the ball four times for 21 yards and was his team’s rushing leader. Tucker Smith ran the ball seven times for 18 yards while Drew Hardison carried the pigskin four times for 20 yards. He also led the Raiders in tackles with seven. Caseon Casteel led in catches, hauling in four for 20 yards.

Coach Kris White commended his squad’s third quarter work and hopes to build on that when they host Battle Creek this Friday night.

“The scheme that they play at, they put a lot of pressure on you offensively; they play very fast, and they move very well, and they have good players all over the place too,” the coach said. “They have yet to let a team score in the three games they have played in.”

He said the third quarter showed they could play toe-to-toe at times with Goodpasture Christian.

“I think we were very physical upfront on defense. We got out of gaps at times, which caused problems, but up front our physicality from our front four definitely matched theirs,” said White regarding what went into the Raiders holding the Cougars scoreless in the third quarter.

The Raiders play host to Battle Creek, who they lost to last season. However, the Grizzlies are yet to win this season, falling in overtime to Mt. Pleasant, 42-41, then 62-35 to Columbia and last week 48-13 to Lincoln County.

Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Moore County High School.