ST. CLOUD – The orange numbers painted on the black end zone concrete signify every St. Cloud Tech football team to ever win a Central Lakes Conference championship or advance to the state tournament.

In their home opener at a chilly Clark Field on Friday, the Tigers persevered through a litany of miscues — namely penalties — to claim a 14-0 victory over Sauk Rapids-Rice.

The victory, coupled with Brainerd’s loss to previously
winless Sartell-St. Stephen, gives Tech (3-0) visions of adding another line, even this early in the season.

The Tigers haven’t won a conference championship since 2007.

“What a great feeling,” said middle linebacker Nathan Kor, who was in on two sacks Friday and helped keep the Storm off the scoreboard. “Just a lot of fun. It would be fantastic to keep this up and do something only some of the guys’ older brothers have done.”

Tech was in the driver’s seat from the first snap Friday, even if yellow flags said different.

Running back Jake Peterson opened the game with a 61-yard trick play pass to Kevin Heysse down to the 15 yard line, but the drive stalled with a fumble on the goal line five plays later.

From there, false starts, dropped passes, holding calls and pass interferences marred an otherwise impressive victory.

To that end, the eventual two-touchdown margin was never enough for Tigers coach Gregg Martig, who didn’t relax until the Storm (1-2) turned the ball over on downs with just under 3 minutes remaining.

“We played pretty well in all phases of the game, but stopped ourselves,” Martig said. “I don’t know if you’re ever comfortable in high school football.”

Tech’s 7-0 halftime lead came on a 1-yard burst by Bryant Amundson in the second quarter. The cushion probably should have been more.

After recovering a fumble of its own later in the half a would-be 40-yard scoring play — a perfect to-the-hands rainbow lob from quarterback Jesse Lavoi to Heysse — was called back because of holding. Lavoi had another receiver open on the next play, but the ball dropped to the turf and the clock ran out three plays later.