**ARTICLE BY MICHAEL MARKOCH**
The Mona Shores Sailors picked up their third straight win, as the Sailors cruised to a 64-14 beatdown of the Union Red Hawks on Friday night. The Sailors scored 43 points in the first quarter, which was more than enough to pick up the victory at home.
The Red Hawks struck first on a 74-yard touchdown pass from Tommy Stevens to Chris Murphy-Ware just over a minute into the game. That score would give Union the only lead it would see for the rest of the night.
Immediately following the Red Hawks score, Sailors’ running back Dahmir Farnum took a handoff 64 yards to the end zone to tie the game at seven. Farnum would then score less than a minute later following a Union turnover to take the lead. But the Red Hawks had a response as running back Elijah Taylor would score on the very next play from 80 yards out to make the score 14-14, not even three minutes into the game.
However, Farnum was far from finished. The senior would go on to score four touchdowns in the first quarter, all within seven minutes of each other, to help the Sailors pull away. By the time the clock hit zero at the end of the first quarter, the Sailors had a secure 43-14 lead.
For the game, Farnum had only eight carries, but they went for 157 yards. And when half of those touches go for scores, that’s certainly an efficient stat line. The Sailors racked up 357 yards on the ground while containing the Red Hawks attack to only 131 rushing yards. The running game was so dominant for Mona Shores that Sailors’ quarterback Johnathan Pittman only had to attempt four passes.
The Sailors would add three more scores by Ke’Waun Farnum, Brandon Bankard and Pittman to push the game even further out of reach in the second and third quarters.
For Union, it was easily their worst game of the season. Quarterback Tommy Stevens completed only 5-of-16 passes and threw three interceptions. He rushed for a shocking negative two yards on 13 carries. The Red Hawks were buried on the scoreboard early, which forced Stevens and the Red Hawks to have to throw the ball, and on this night, it wasn’t meant to be. Union wasn’t able to stay on the field as the Red Hawks only possessed the ball for five minutes and 52 seconds of total game time.
The loss was Union’s second in a row following it’s 3-0 start and it won’t get any easier for the Red Hawks, as next week they return home to take on the Muskegon Big Reds. For Mona Shores, it will take it’s 4-1 record on the road in week six as the Sailors are set to take on the Zeeland West Dux in a battle of conference leaders.
