A handful of big plays and a whole lot of Rogers penalties were all that St. Michael-Albertville needed for a 28-14 victory Friday night at Rogers.

The Knights, who entered the evening having scored a combined 86 points in their previous two games, struggled to move the ball much of the night.

It didn’t matter; Rogers helped them out.

Racking up nearly 100 total yards in penalties, Rogers twice kept St. Michael-Albertville scoring drives alive with untimely fouls.

“They did have a lot of penalties, and that did hurt them,” St. Michael-Albertville coach Jared Essler said, “and we did a good job of staying penalty-free and making plays when we had to.”

Most of those plays came from Knights junior running back Chris Kartes, who scored three of the Knights’ four touchdowns and accounted for 175 total yards.

“We did a good job turning their penalties into points,” Kartes said. “We were able to do some things, though. We hit some nice passes and we had some good holes to run through.”

Kartes scored the decisive touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter, a 9-yard run up the middle that was one of his easier touches on the night. That touchdown came only two plays after Rogers gave up 25 yards on two penalties — a pass interference call on a deep throw down the sideline and a personal foul for unsportsmanlike conduct following the initial flag.

St. Michael-Albertville (3-1 overall and in the Mississippi 8) sealed its victory on a 2-yard run from Bennie Wilson with only 23 seconds remaining.

Quarterback Cole Krutzig finished the night 10-for-20 for 95 yards and one touchdown on a screen pass to Kartes.
Connor Henderson completed 14 of 27 passes for 126 yards for Rogers (3-1, 2-1 Mississippi 8) and hit wide receiver Levi Simpson on a quick slant for a 9-yard score on the opening drive of the second half.