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Bengals blanked against Vikings on gridiron

Bengals offense struggles against Viks

Jeff Allen

A promising start eventually turned into a rout as the Snohomish County Vikings took apart the Pierce County Bengals through the air on their way to a 48-0 win on Saturday at Sunset Chevrolet Stadium in Sumner.

Pierce County’s Junior Meade returned the opening kickoff to the Viking 34-yard line but the Bengals could not capitalize on their good positioning. The Bengals’ inability to capitalize with good field position was one of the two major story lines from the night.

Snohomish quarterback Hal Bisnett’s ability to find open receivers behind the Pierce secondary was the other.

“I thought the defense played really well,” Bengals head coach Ron Baines said. “I think the front line and linebackers played really well. We went through six safeties and we’re still trying to figure out who’s going to be where. So that’s hurting us right now.”

After a first quarter that ended in a 0-0 deadlock, Bisnett connected with his receivers for touchdowns three times in the second quarer and the Vikings added another score on the ground to take a 26-0 lead into intermission.

The Vikings came out for the second half and picked up right where they left off, scoring a pair of touchdowns in the third quarter to extend the lead to 41-0. The conversion attempt after the second touchdown was botched, but a Viking player picked up the ball and dove into the end zone for two points.

Bengals quarterback Dan Ramoie could not match the success of his Snohomish counterpart. Ramoie connected with Jedadiah Bickham for a 31-yard completion, but the two could not find the same magic to get the Bengals their first points of the game. Bickham just missed Ramoie’s pass in the end zone with 4 minutes left in the game.

Ramoie also threw a number of interceptions and never seemed comfortable in the pocket because the Viking defensive line brought pressure on him the entire night.

“We’re just not together right now. I mean, we’re working on that,” Ramoie said. “So we just need to come together as a team.”

Meade and running back Quincy Jackson had bright days for the Bengals. After the opening kickoff, Meade continued to run hard on his kick returns and added another 52-yard return in the second half but always seemed to get brought down by the last defender.

“Just a couple people needed to get in front of me, just get that last block,” Meade said. “That’s pretty much it.”

Bengals’ defensive back Myredn Gainer managed to get a hold of a Bisnett pass in the end zone to keep the Vikings off the scoreboard early in the first quarter. Pedro Torres added another interception for the Bengals late in the game.

Jones took the majority of the carries for the Bengals and had a few solid runs.

The loss was the first for the Bengals in Northwest Football League conference play and second on the season. The Vikings rebounded from an 18-15 loss to the Renton Ravens on June 5.

“We’re not that bad,” Baines said. “When we lost this game we were 2-0 in the league. Wow we’re 2-1. So we’re not really bad, we just got the crap beat out of us in front of everybody.”

Baines said there are new faces showing up at practice every week so it’s hard to get the team to jell together.

“We’ve got a lot of guys from some other teams so there’s a lot of uncertainties to what we need to do,” Baines said. “The quarterbacks are new and so it’s going to take a while to learn the system.”