When Grand Forks Central's defense started stacking the line, Taylor Steen took it as a challenge.
The Grand Forks Red River senior erupted with his biggest passing game of the high school football season Friday. Steen threw for 226 yards and four touchdowns, leading the Roughriders to a 40-13 win against Central in the annual Cushman Classic.
Red River improved to 2-1 while winning its third straight Cushman Classic. Central dropped to 0-3.
"We're a run-first team with our big offensive line,'' Steen said. "Central did a good job of stopping our running game. That was more motivation for me.
"Our receivers were getting open. They definitely made it easier for me. And we had some size mismatches.''
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Steen's big performance was in the second quarter.
Red River led 6-0 after one quarter on the strength of a 46-yard punt return for a touchdown by Jimmy Evers. Steen was 1-for-3 for 8 yards in the opening 12 minutes; in the second quarter, he was 11-for-13 for 146 yards.
Steen hit Adam Bothun for an 8-yard score, then Taylor Dennison wrestled away a pass from a defender at the goal line for a 22-yard score. Steen capped the first half with a 36-yard touchdown pass to VaShawn Pope for a 26-0 lead as time expired in the second quarter.
Steen finished 16-of-21 passing after completing less than 50 percent of his passes in Red River's first two games.
"This was very exciting for us to see,'' Red River coach Vyrn Muir said. "Central was coming up hard on the line, so we went to a little more play-action. This is the Taylor Steen we've been looking for. And our receivers ran better routes and made plays after the catch.''
The biggest play may have been on a Red River kickoff. After Dennison's touchdown, Central wasn't able to handle the Riders' ensuing kickoff. Tyler Kemnitz recovered the loose ball with 28 seconds left on the Knights' 31-yard line. A penalty knocked Red River back 10 yards, but then Steen hit Dennison for 5 yards and Pope for the score.
"That (touchdown) was a killer, the dagger in the heart,'' Central coach Bill Lorenz said. "It was a demoralizer. You could see the winds go out of our sails. And we've struggled punching the ball in, so that was a big lead.
"Coming in, we were geared up to stop the running game, between the way they'd run it in the first two games and the running yards we'd been allowing. But (Steen) was putting the ball right on the money.''
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Steen threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Bothun on the first drive of the third quarter and Logan Ferry added a 20-yard scoring run.
Central got a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns, on a 5-yard Chad Goering run and a 7-yard pass from Joe Martin to Rylie Devier.
Goering finished with 106 yards rushing and Tyler Haug had 125. But that wasn't enough to overcome the Steen-led Red River aerial game.
"Tyler got into a rhythm,'' Muir said.
