The Cascade Champions were simply outmatched in their home opener against the Richland Raiders on Friday night with the visitors taking the win, 54-14, in Jared Carkuff’s long-anticipated return to The Stable. 

After losing starting quarterback Peyton Wireman and key two-way senior lineman Noah Hawkins to long term injuries against Moore County in Week One, as well as a stomach bug spreading through the rest of the camp, Cascade knew they would have to fight an uphill battle all night long. The visiting Raiders brought in more than 35 upperclassmen, and that unusual amount of experience at this level itself along the line-of-scrimmage on both sides of the ball more or less had their way all night against the youth of Cascade. 

To replace Wireman, wideout Christian Casey, who was practicing as the team’s emergency backup quarterback throughout the entire offseason, moved to under center. He finished 9/22 for 50 yards and 1 INT passing while rushing for 44 yards on 11 carries. 

Meanwhile, Richland’s senior quarterback Blaine Woodard was extremely impressive all night long, starting out the game completing his first ten passes and finishing with a statline of 13/17 for 255 yards and 1 TD. The Raiders’ rushing attack compiled over 200 yards on the ground as well. 

Cascade’s Kaden Hill was the game’s leading rusher individually, amassing 87 yards and 1 TD on 13 carries. 

 The scoring started off almost immediately for the visitors. A 70-yard TD drive ended with a five-yard TD run for Andrew Huff less than 90 seconds in, and after Cascade had to punt on their opening possession, Woodard bombed a 51-yard TD to Aylin Kennedy to put Richland ahead 14-0 with 8:00 left in the opening frame. 

Cascade desperately needed a response, and they got it with a 13-play, 90-yard TD drive that ended with a Hill 10-yard TD run with 2:26 to go in the quarter. The Champs really found their rhythm on the ground with both Hill and Casey toting the rock multiple times on that possession. 

After Richland responded with a long drive that ended with a one-yard TD run by Luke Eslick to go up 21-7, Corey Gooch electrified the home crowd with his lightning speed on a 95+ yard kick return TD down the right sideline that cut the lead in half again at 21-14 with 10:22 to go in the first half.

However, this would be both the closest Cascade would get to Richland and the final time the hosts managed to find the end zone. After a Cascade three-and-out was sandwiched between two long Raiders’ TD drives, the Champs went into the halftime locker room trailing 34-14 against a now-suffocating Richland defense.

The Raiders scored three more touchdowns in the third quarter to push the score to 54-14 before subbing out the vast majority of their starters for the final frame.

Corey Gooch, along with his kick-return TD, was Cascade’s leading receiver with five catches for 25 yards. The loss of Wireman is certainly a difficult one to swallow for first-year head coach Jared Carkuff, but he has confidence in the next man up to continue improving and start building towards some wins moving forward.

Richland improves to 1-1 on the season.

Cascade falls to 0-2 and are set to travel to play at Huntland on Thursday night, LIVE on WZNG The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400 starting at 6:45 p.m.