Stone scored four times and rushed for 156 yards on 30 carries to help Black Hills surprise visiting River Ridge, 28-13, in an Evergreen Conference matchup Friday at Tumwater District Stadium.
After opening the season with a pair of nonleague defeats, including a 53-point loss to Class 1A Montesano, the Wolves now find themselves tied atop the EvCo standings with a 2-0 mark.
“We don’t win this game two weeks ago,” said Stone when asked about how far his team has progressed since the beginning of the season. “The team just started buying into it. We started believing in the program 100 percent. That’s the biggest difference here.”
Stone provided all the offensive punch for Black Hills, scoring on runs of 2, 2, 23 and 2 yards.
“It wasn’t me. It was all the guys up front,” Stone said. “They were the ones doing the dirty work.”
River Ridge (2-2 overall, 0-1 EvCo) played without four starters, including all-league running back Brad Wallace (high ankle sprain).
The Hawks were also without two-way starters Nich Justus (knee), Rayne Lemaster (knee) and Christian Dilworth (shoulder).
“The kids played hard. We made just too many silly turnovers and had too many penalties,” River Ridge coach Steve Schultz said. “You can’t do that in our league and expect to win. We play in too tough of a league to make those types of mistakes.”
Holding a slim 14-13 advantage, Black Hills cushioned its lead on Stone’s third scoring scamper of the contest to grab a 21-13 lead with a little less than 10 minutes to play.
Three turnovers over the next five minutes of play doomed all hope of a Hawks’ comeback.
The Wolves added a third 2-yard TD run by Stone following a River Ridge fumble at the Hawks’ 27 to produce the final score.
Black Hills picked off Colby Schultz passes to end River Ridge’s next two possessions.
Without Wallace – who has rushed for 464 yards in 21/2 games – in the lineup, the Hawks looked lost offensively for much of the first half as they fell behind 14-0.
With a little more than a minute left in the first half, River Ridge had tallied just 80 yards of total offense, with 47 of those yards coming on a run by Elijah Camacho, who needed to change directions twice during the play just to avoid losing yards originally.
River Ridge then recovered a muffed punt return at the Wolves 30.
Black Hills ran 25 offensive plays in the first half, with Stone carrying the ball 16 times for 83 yards.
