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Zalen McCraw’s message rang loud and clear across Polk County’s sidelines.

“We gotta get this goose egg,” McCraw shouted Friday evening in the waning seconds of the Wolverines’ season opener at Madison. “We gotta want it.”

Polk County’s football program may never have wanted a shutout more, given how its defense struggled at the end of last season. And deliver one did McCraw and teammates, Polk spoiling Madison’s first home game since 2021 with a 30-0 victory.

It marked the Wolverines’ first shutout since an October 2021 win at Draughn by the same score. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the effort was that Madison only came close to scoring once, driving to the Polk 17 before settling for a 37-yard field goal attempt that fell just short.

“I’m just happy with the defense, with the shutout and how they finished,” said Polk County head coach Dustin Fry. “I’m just happy to be 1-0 right now.”

As typical of a season opener, it wasn’t pretty at times, and there were plenty of stoppages. An official was knocked unconscious on a play on the Polk sidelines, forcing a long delay (he later returned to watch the game). Players cramped. Wolverine lineman Simon Moore suffered a leg injury. Flags flew at regular intervals.

The injuries forced Polk to shuffle its lineup often and modify its offensive approach, as next man up might well have been the mantra of the final two quarters.

“We were trying to be basic in our game plan, but we didn’t try to take too much,” Fry said. “Became a little bit predictable in the second half just because it’s hard to move guys when they don’t know what to do. So we got a little bit predictable in the second half.”

Polk scored its first points of the season on a safety, with Aaron Dickey hauling down Madison quarterback Easton Greene in the end zone on the Patriots’ first possession. The Wolverines scored again on the first play of the second quarter, with Gunnar Alm tossing a 9-yard touchdown pass to Billy Booker, then Alm sprinting around left end for the 2-point conversion and a 10-0 lead. A Madison special teams error set up that score, with Polk gaining possession at the Patriot 4.

A stop on a fourth-and-5 at midfield on Madison’s next possession gave Polk the ball at the Patriot 42, and the Wolverines again capitalized on great field position. Alm’s 8-yard scramble on a third-and-4 kept the drive alive, and Loreynzo Sanchez ended it with a 4-yard scoring run for a 16-0 Polk lead with 6:17 left in the half.

The lead stayed there until Polk’s best drive of the night, an 11-play, 66-yard march at the start of the fourth quarter. Alm and Dickey teamed on a 41-yard catch-and-run to cap the possession with a touchdown, Dickey weaving through a pair of defenders and then outracing a couple more down the sideline to the end zone. Billy Booker’s extra point put Polk up 23-0 with 8:28 remaining.

The Wolverines capped the scoring with just more than three minutes remaining as Donte Tingling burst through the Madison line on a fourth-and-1 and raced 43 yards to the end zone to cap the evening.

“We were able to run the ball a little bit,” Fry said.

Tingling finished with 100 yards on 12 carries to lead Polk’s offense. The Wolverines unofficially held Madison to four yards rushing and 57 total yards.

“I’ll enjoy this for 24 hours, and it’s back to work on Sunday,” Fry said. “On to Tuscola.”