The Elmwood-Plum City Wolves lost to the Boyceville Bulldogs by a score of 50-6 on Saturday in Boyceville.

The first quarter went well for the Wolves. They created multiple turnovers, scored and held the Bulldogs mostly in check, allowing just a single score. At the end of the first 12:00, it was Boyceville 8 Elmwood-Plum City 6.

The Wolves had the ball as the second quarter started; however, they were unable to do much with it and they punted it away with 9:43 remaining. The punt was a short one, so the Bulldogs took over on their own 43-yard line.

On 1^st and 10, Boyceville went to the air for a 20-yard pass out to the Wolves 37. A couple of runs and a penalty against Elmwood later, and the Bulldogs were looking at 1^st and 10 from the 13-yard line. They kept pounding the run, and eventually got it in to make the score 14-6 after a missed 2-point attempt.

The Wolves went three and out on their next possession and punted the ball out to midfield. From there, the Bulldogs moved methodically downfield where another Wolves’ penalty made it 1^st and goal on the 3-yard line. Boyceville was able to convert, throwing a touchdown pass but missing the 2-point conversion to make it 20-6.

The second quarter ended without another score, but Elmwood-Plum City got the ball back after halftime only down two scores. The Wolves stuck to their guns looking to get something going in the run game, but after a tackle for a loss on 3^rd down they were forced to punt the ball.

Boyceville aired one out downfield for a 20-yard completion, but after a penalty made it 1^st and 20 from midfield it looked like Elmwood might be getting the ball right back and could close the gap. Unfortunately, the Bulldogs were able to connect with another big strike, this time for 37 yards due to broken coverage downfield. Two plays later, they had another touchdown and a 2-point conversion, both via the run.

Down 28-6, EPC fumbled the ball on the kickoff return and gave the Bulldogs starting field position deep in the Wolves’ own territory. Boyceville ran the ball on consecutive plays and secured both another touchdown and a 2-point conversion to raise the score to 36-6.

EPC couldn’t get anything going on the following drive, and they went three and out again allowing Boyceville an opportunity to add on. The Bulldogs did just that as they were able to work their way downfield and score again with another successful 2-point conversion attempt to bring the score to 44-6 as the quarter wound down to its end.

The fourth wasn’t any better for EPC. They gave up another score before almost securing a garbage time touchdown for themselves in the waning seconds of the game, but the clock expired before they could punch it in. Thus, the final score was 50-6.

On a day when nothing seemed to go right for EPC, there wasn’t much of a silver lining. The Wolves only had three total 1^st downs all game and just 91 yards of total offense. They went just 1-9 on 3^rd downs and 1-2 on 4^th and they did not force a single Boyceville punt all game.

Somehow, in the midst of all that though, they still held Boyceville to a near tie in time of possession splits at 21:18 to 26:42, and they also forced four turnovers, three fumbles and an interception.

Blake Allen paced the team in offensive yards for the fifth game in a row by carrying the rock 18 times for 60 yards and a score. This raises his total yardage on the year to 599 in just five games. Fans of Wolves football will remember that this system produced one of the top rushers in the state last year, and Allen is doing an admirable job of filling those shoes.

“It's just thanks to my line. Even when they give me a semi good block, I try to take advantage of it,” Allen said. “And, when they give me good blocks, I make sure that they know that.”

The Wolves are now 2-3 on the season, but they played Spring Valley for the conference title just a year ago. Last season’s conference champion was decided in the final game where they ended up taking second. Allen says that’s the bar they’ve set for themselves again.

“Our goal is to finish there if not better,” Allen said. “We just need to come back and play some good football from now on.”

Mike Birtzer, head coach of the Wolves, said coaching this type of offense that’s so dependent on the run can be very trying in games when rushing the ball isn’t working. However, he also said the answer isn’t simply to change their offensive scheme and go to the air either.

“It’s frustrating to try to find the answers some games. But, usually, in many cases like today, if we're not run blocking, we're not pass blocking either,” Birtzer said. “Our ideal game would be to have something like 300 yards rushing with Blake getting 140-150 of it, and then the other guys picking the rest up. But, in these games like this, we're not doing that. We aren’t making the blocks that we need to make.”

It isn’t just players not being up to the challenge or a skillset issue, Birtzer said.  A lot of it is preventable, and cleaning these things up is a priority for the Wolves as they go forward.

“We need to learn how to eliminate the mental mistakes. When you run this offense like this, you can't have penalties, you can't have turnovers and we said that that was going to be huge,” Birtzer said. “And, you know, we had the penalties, we had the missed blocks, and we did the same thing in Clear Lake two weeks ago. We corrected them, and we had a good game against Cadott last week. So, now we just need to make sure we fix that stuff.”

With this, Elmwood-Plum City drops to 2-3 on the season and Boyceville advances to 5-0. The Wolves will look to even their record this week as they travel to Colfax to face the 1-4 Vikings who are coming off their fourth consecutive loss of the season. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.