It's not easy for any football team to open its season at Forest Lake. And the Maple Grove High School football team found out last Friday that it was not the place for a brand new school to play its first ever game.

The Rangers, one of the powers in the Twin Cities Suburban Conference this year, used their powerful offense and cashed in on several Maple Grove mistakes to rout the Crimson 52-0.

"We gave up a number of points but I think it was a big first step to take," Crimson coach Craig Hansen said. "We are not down at all. I don't think the score was indicative of how the game went. Obviously, Forest Lake is a very good team and has a strong back who's hard to bring down. Defensively, it was tough to stop them. On the other hand, we lost two fumbles and had two interceptions that led to their touchdowns."

The Rangers scored on their first possession and cashed in on a Crimson fumble to make it 16-0 in the first quarter. Maple Grove launched a long drive to the Forest Lake 5 but the Rangers intercepted a pass, had a long return and eventually scored to increase their lead to 22-0. That opened the floodgate as Forest Lake kept pouring it on.

"There were some first-game jitters and we fumbled a couple snaps and missed some passes," Hansen said. "But as the game went on everybody found a niche. I was proud of the kids. Their spirit was good and they played hard for 48 minutes."

Despite the score, Hansen saw many positive signs. The Crimson had 14 first downs and sophomore quarterback C. J. Woodrow completed 17 of 33 passes for 215 yards. Jeff Hess caught six passes for 109 yards, Lane Stromberg caught four for 45 yards, Ryan Hastings had three receptions for 34 yards and Justin Layman had two receptions for 21. Ray Flint led Crimson rush-ers with 26 yards on six carries.

Defensively, junior linebacker Tom Owen had a blocked extra point kick, four unassisted tackles and five assisted tackles. Free safety Darren Lindquist had two unassisted and two assisted tackles and outside linebacker Jeremy Rice had six un-assisted tackles.

"We were quite pleased," Hansen said. "We had three nice long drives that ended up inside the 5 and two inside the 1. Our special teams did fine and we had only one penalty, so I think there were a lot of good things, too. We're a young team with eight sophomores starting at offense and five or six on defense, and they are an established program, But that's life. We needed to get lit game time and we needed to against a good team to help you understand where you are at and where you need to get to."

The Crimson's learning season, continues when they next host Mounds View Friday, Sept. 6, at Carl Tonn Field.