STOW: The energy at Bulldog Stadium was rocking from the very start Friday night.
Both Stow’s offense and defense fed off that energy early, scoring five touchdowns while holding Nordonia scoreless in the first half en route to a 63-28 win in a Suburban League National Conference matchup.
Stow (5-0, 2-0) totaled 306 yards in the first two quarters, averaging nearly 10 yards a play, while holding the Knights to 53 total yards to take a 35-0 lead into halftime.
The Bulldogs — who finished with 521 total yards — were led by senior quarterback Kyle Vantrease who had five touchdowns, four through the air. The University of Buffalo signee finished 13-of-19 passing for 185 yards, while rushing for 96 yards and a score. He threw one interception in the end zone.
Vantrease, who showed poise all night by any sort of pressure that Nordonia put on him, made the right reads and found open receivers.
The Bulldogs’ leading receiver was Joe Andrassy, who had five catches — four of which went for a score — for 75 yards. He caught scoring passes of 36, 9, 7 and 15 yards.
Running back Terrian Wray led the Bulldogs on the ground, finishing with 118 yards on 18 carries.
Wray got Stow on the board first, scoring on an 8-yard run a play after a Nordonia fumble to make it 7-0. He added his second touchdown later in the first quarter to push the lead to 14-0.
Vantrease made it 21-0 with 5:02 left in the half on a 16-yard scoring run.
But even with a running clock to start the second half, the Knights weren’t ready to pack it in. Fighting throughout the second half, they found themselves down 42-21 with two minutes left in the third quarter after scoring on back-to-back plays in just 15 seconds.
Leading the Knights’ second-half surge was quarterback Robby Levak, who tossed three scoring passes after the intermission. He finished 15-of-31 for 188 yards.
Tye Evans was Levak’s top target, catching eight passes for 130 yards and all three scores, of 25, 16 and 48 yards.
Nordonia (2-3, 0-2) dropped its second consecutive game and third in the past four.
The Bulldogs have scored more than 56 points three times this season and have won 16 consecutive regular-season games dating back to a Week 9 loss in 2014.
Read the high school blog at http://www.ohio.com/preps.