Champlin Park romped to a 41-6 win over visiting Maple Grove Friday, Sept. 20, in front of a packed homecoming crowd, but the Crimson made history when they scored their first ever touchdown in the fourth quarter.

The historic score came in the final quarter when quarterback C.J. Woodrow tossed a 16-yard touchdown pass to Jeff Hesse for the first points scored by the first year Crimson team.

The Crimson were competitive in the first half. They took the opening kick-off and promptly launched an impressive drive. Behind the running of running backs Justin Lehman and Ray Flint and Woodrow, the crimson marched from their 20 to the Champlin Park 25. Maple Grove almost scored its first touchdown and first lead of the season when Woodrow just overthrew Hesse in the right corner of the end zone on fourth down.

The Rebels got the ball and immediately drove 80 yards to score on running back Tom Gordon's two-yard touchdown run. Eric Sis kicked to give Champlin Park a 7-0 lead

The Crimson could not move and a bad snap on the ensuing punt gave Champlin Park the ball on the Maple Grove 20. The Maple Grove defense was stubborn but the Rebels scored on a three-yard touchdown pass from Neuberger to senior fullback Noel Morsch on fourth down to make it 13-0 after one quarter of play.

Maple Grove had another good drive going to start the second quarter, but the drive was stalled by a holding penalty that negated a big gain by Flint and a fumbled exchange between the center and quarterback. Woodrow completed a pass to Hesse but his next toss was intercepted by Rebel junior cornerback Tom Gregory.

The Rebels' offense could not sustain a drive but the defense recovered a Maple Grove fumble near midfield late in the first half to set up another score for a 20-0 halftime lead. Champlin Park put away the Crimson early in the second half when Scheer broke loose for a 74-yard touchdown run and Neuberger scored on a four-yard scamper. After Maple Grove scored, the Rebels ended the game on Gordon's 80-yard touchdown run in the waning seconds.

"It was our best game of the sea-son and we were really pleased," MG coach Craig Hansen said. "It was so much fun to see the improvement. We had thrown the ball quite well early in the season and we needed to create some balance, so we've been working hard to try to improve our running game as well. On Friday night, we took some re-ally big strides to improve that."

The Crimson rushed for 183 yards on 40 carries. Lehman had 87 yards on 16 rushes and Woodrow had 12 carries for 68 yards. Flint and Eric Omberg each gained 16 yards. "We ran the veer the best we've ever run it," Hansen said. "The young men executed very well. That will compliment our passing at-tack." Woodrow completed 7 of 15 passes for 76 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. Hesse caught three passes for 39 yards and one touchdown and Lehmen had two receptions for 26 yards.

"It was exciting to score," Hansen said. "We were threatening and we saw some things were there. The players executed. Our protection and play action were great and the pat-tern was run well. That's exciting for them to experience what we worked on in practice and to go into a game and execute and succeed. That's a great step for us."

Defensively, sophomore inside linebacker Brett Schendel had a sea-son-high 17 tackles, tackle Justin Keuhner had four tackles and was a rock on the line, outside linebacker Kyle Olson had four tackles and pro-vided good coverage and corner backs Darren Lindquist, Joe Higgins and Peter Corniea were always on the ball breaking up passes.

"The overall team effort was much improved," Hansen said. "The turn-overs still bother me. Some people would read the papers and said we gave up 41 points, but we had an interception, lost a fumble and had a bad snap over our punter. That put our defense in really bad positions."

Other than the turnovers, Hansen was upbeat about his team's improved play.

"The intensity and hitting improved," he said. "We were playing more aggressively and with more confidence."

The Crimson hope to continue their improvement when they next host Roseville in a 7:30 p.m. game Friday, Sept. 27.