MOUNT VERNON — Moving the football up and down the field Friday, September 28, the Anamosa football team played the kind of game offensively coach Matt Malausky knew his team could.

“We picked up 275 yards with our passing game against a pretty good Mount Vernon defense,” said Malausky as Raider quarterbacks Brady Vaughn and Tony Lueken lit up the Mount Vernon sky with sensational pin-point passing. “That’s a number a little closer to ones I’d like to see on a consistent basis from this team. But what also hurt was our six turnovers. That’s something that has been a little too consistent with this team this year and if we can limit those mistakes, I think we’re close, very close to becoming a team that can win.”

Anamosa (0-5, 0-3) was humbled in the 52-6 setback against a Mount Vernon team still looking for their own identity under first year coach Duanne Orr, who took over the reins of the Mustang program from longtime coaching icon Jim Bellamy.

“This isn’t your normal Mount Vernon-type team, but they sure looked like it against us” said Malausky who himself is building a program and building confidence with his own players in the new up-tempo style offense. “This should be another big confidence-building game for us. Even though the score may not show it, we made improvements offensively and even made improvements with the way we played on the defensive side of the football too.”

The Raiders marched the football right down the field on their opening possession, only to have it ended with an interception deep in Mustang territory.

“That just seemed to kind of set the tone for the way the game was going to go for us,” said Malausky. “We’d show we could move the football, then we’d make a mistake and give Mount Vernon the football right back.”

The Mustangs didn’t waste the extra opportunities as well scoring a whopping 21 first quarter points before adding two more touchdowns in the second stanza taking a huge 34-0 lead into the halftime break.

“To the kids’ credit, they never hung their heads and kept fighting, just like they always have been all season long,” said Malausky. “Even after the rough first half and trailing by a lopsided score, we kept attacking in the second half and continued to put up some nice numbers offensively.”

Overall the Raiders tallied 299 yards of total offense while the hosts didn’t do too much better piling up 301 total yards against a Raider defense who also were playing some inspired football but time and again were pinned against their own goal line due to Anamosa turnovers.

“Our offense didn’t help our defense quite a few times with some of those turnovers,” said Malausky. “Mount Vernon had some short fields for quite a few of their scores and that makes things pretty tough on the defense.”

EPWORTH — Ideal conditions met runners as Anamosa took to the course in Epworth Thursday, September 27, as the Raiders continue to prime for huge conference and district meets in the very near future.

“That’s what all this is for right now,” said Anamosa cross country coach Phil Kauder. “We want to be running our best when it comes to conference and districts and slowly but surely, we seem to be getting there.”

The Anamosa girls placed fifth in the loaded 18-team meet as the Raiders scored 183 points and were just nosed out for fourth by host Western Dubuque who tallied 176 points overall.

“We are really focusing on the team aspect with our group,” said Kauder. “We are a team, not individuals. We are only as good as our fifth and seventh runners can be. It takes five scores to have a team and seven runners make the five that score hopefully more competitive.”

Kayla Sanborn turned in a very competitive performance in Epworth leading the Raider girls with a sensational seventh-place finish tallying a time of 16:43 while Kellie Vaughn ran second on the team and 22nd overall after crossing the finish line in 17:23.

Cammy Dole was 31st after her 17:43 clocking while Katie Grassi finished 53rd with a time of 19:06. Rebecca Moyer (19:47) and Breanne Kula (20:20) rounded out the Anamosa effort placing 70th and 78th overall, respectively.

The Raider boys scored 301 points and were 11th overall as Jacob Schwaegler paced the team effort with a 19:38 clocking and 52nd-place showing.

Brice Antons was 56th after his 20:00 effort while Kenneth Beadle placed 61st in 20:14. Garett Long (20:15), Peter Obando (20:43), Zak Fortune (21:19) and Tyler Day (21:26) completed the Raider scoring placing 62nd, 70th, 78th and 80th, respectively.

Ryan Dolan turned in a solid effort running the JV boys’ race finishing 13th in 19:53 while Jordan Wilson closed in 21:15 and was 36th. Tony Snobl (21:25), James Bowers (21:38), Justin Kaufman (22:15), Mitch Nissen (24:13) and Sam Hunt (25:12) rounded out the JV boys’ effort placing 38th, 43rd, 59th, 83rd and 94th, respectively.