By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

Four takeaways and a powerful running game proved the winning combination for East River Friday during its 27-14 win over St. Cloud at Gannarelli Field in a 4A District 7 contest.

The Falcons improved to 5-0 and 2-0 and are tied with Edgewater and Harmony for the district lead.

East River dominated the first half behind a huge offensive line that gouged holes for running backs Josh Holomon (19-122, 1 TD) and Mike Bowen (23-89, 1 TD).

Despite the fact that the Falcons ran twice as many plays as St.Cloud, and out-gained it 217-46 in the first half, the score was just 7-0 after  Holomon’s 54-yard TD run  early in the second quarter.

“They took it to us in the first half,” St. Cloud Coach Bill Buldini said. “They showed us a little different look that we hadn’t seen before, and they basically out-physicaled us. We were able to make a couple of adjustments to slow it down in the second half.”

Unfortunately, the Bulldogs turned it over four times, all on interceptions, and three of those turnovers led to Falcons TDs.

The game seemed over after Bowen caught a 27-yard fourth-down TD pass with 9:19 left in the game, making it 20-0, but a pair of Falcons turnovers, a pair of onside kick recoveries by the Bulldogs, and a slew of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties against East River (three for 45 yards) in the final three minutes made it interesting.

Irving Huggins took a screen pass from St. Cloud quarterback Phillip Steinmetz  and turned it into a 32-yard touchdown play with 2:36 left to cut the lead to 20-6, but after the Bulldogs recovered the onside kick, the Falcons’ Andrew Dubose returned an interception 55 yards to make it 27-6.

The Bulldogs quickly drove 65 yards to score again on Cole Harvey’s 12-yard TD catch from Steinmetz (6-22-75, 2 TDs). Steinmetz passed to Huggins for two points with 1:43 left and the Bulldogs recovered another onside kick, but the rally ended when Steinmetz’s fourth-down pass was batted down at the line of scrimmage with 50 seconds left.

For the game, the Falcons out-gained the Bulldogs, 365-125, and ran 21 more plays, 67-46.

“Three big plays were the difference,” Buldini said. “I’m proud of my guys for fighting to the end the way they did. But, our destiny is not in our hands anymore. There’s no use in crying about it. All we can do is get back to work in practice and show up next week.”

The Bulldogs host Hagerty and highly-touted quarterback Jeff Driskel, verbally committed to UF, Friday for a non-district game.