Thursday, September 6, 2018

Rematch of Last Year's Section Final to Open SLP Orioles Home Season

Friday's home opener for the St. Louis Park Orioles football team has a familiar ring to it since they will be hosting the opponent they beat last November to enter their first state football tournament the Cooper Hawks.  Here's a preview of Friday's game.

Both the Orioles and Hawks were victorious last week.  St. Louis Park opened their season last Thursday against the Bloomington Kennedy Eagles.  Sajid Nathim ran for two touchdowns to help lead the Orioles to a 34-7 win.  Nathim had 17 carries for 67 yards.  Aaron Ellingson, making his first regular season start at quarterback after Johnny Sorenson received his diploma last June threw two touchdown passes.  The first was to Akili Farris and the second was to McCabe Dvorak.  Ellingson completed 14 of 28 passes for 121 yards.  Farris and Dvorak were two of four St. Louis Park players to catch three passes.  The other two were Cole Ewald, son of St. Louis Park activities director Andy Ewald and Sam Thyme.  The key to beating Cooper is for Ellingson to spread the ball around on offense and the offensive line has to create opportunities for Nathim to get big gains against a tough Hawks defense.  On defense, they will need to slow down the Hawks running game.

As for Cooper, they traveled to Brooklyn Park last Friday to take on the Park Center Pirates.  Nascier Borden ran for two touchdowns and 141 rushing yards to sink the Pirates 54-14.  Pedro Amoussou was a duel threat for the Hawks, scoring two touchdowns.  The first came on a 71 yard punt return in the first quarter and caught a 30 yard touchdown pass from Trashawn McMillan with 1:03 left in the first half.  The Hawks are a running team and the key to the game for Cooper will be trying to solve the St. Louis Park defense as they utilized team speed and strong defense.

It should be a beautiful Friday night in St. Louis Park so get outside and head to the stadium as St. Louis Park tries to win their second consecutive game against Cooper.  Game time is 7 PM.

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