CERRO GORDO — The St. Pauls High School football team picked up a huge nonconference win over the West Columbus Vikings on the road Thursday night. The originally scheduled Friday game was pushed back to Thursday due to weather. The Bulldogs shook off a rocky start and put on a scoring clinic to go along with a 55-0 defensive shutout win.

“Last year West Columbus played us really, really tough and really good last year,” Bulldogs head coach Mike Setzer said. “The guys really wanted to come out and show a better effort tonight, so I’m super proud of them.”

After turning the ball over on their first two offensive possessions, the Bulldogs got off on the right foot after gaining possession back thanks to a Jakhi Purcell interception. This would set up a Theophilus Setzer touchdown pass to Malachi Locklear for a 9-yard touchdown pass to lead 6-0 after a missed extra point.

“We gotta let it go (after the turnovers),” St. Pauls’ Yoshua McBryde said. “Think about the next play, have that goldfish memory. We gotta get to the next play,” Yoshua McBryde said.

On the next Vikings possession, the Bulldogs found the end zone once again after Quintell McNeil picked off Larry Graham and returned it for a pick-six to give the Bulldogs a 14-0 lead after a successful two-point conversion. St. Pauls added on with a McBryde rushing touchdown to make it 21-0 to end the first quarter.

West Columbus found some positive possessions in the second quarter but could not convert anything into a score as the Bulldogs defense kept the pressure on them. St. Pauls closed the first half out with a Setzer to McBryde connection on a 34-yard passing touchdown to make it 28-0. The defense forced a fumble on the next play from scrimmage and Dontez Leach put it in the end zone for a 20-yard scoop-and-score to make it 35-0 at the half.

“The defense has really played lights out for three weeks,” Mike Setzer said. “We have had busted plays, so we’ve been talking about the last weeks about busted plays. So, it is really good for us to do, to reduce that. We still had a couple busted plays tonight, some penalties helped us out on it. But all in all, our defense has been playing lights out.”

After forcing a three and out the Bulldogs added on to the score on special teams when Locklear returned a 60-yard punt for a touchdown to make it 42-0. The Bulldogs added on with a rushing touchdown from McBryde and a Jashon Carter rushing touchdown to make it 55-0 and close things out for the win.

“We’ve been talking about for the last three weeks, we left a lot of meat on the bone and because we left a lot of meat on the bone, we just felt like we just wern’t playing our best football,” Mike Setzer said. “So, the last three games we’ve had really bad third quarters and so we were really happy to get the third quarter going. It was important for us. I thought that, you know, right there towards the, the last three games, we just did not show up in the third quarter. So, third quarter was big for us tonight.”

McBryde led the way on the ground rushing with 79 yards on 15 carries, 34 receiving yards and three touchdowns. Theophilus Setzer went 4-for-8 passing for 100 yards, a touchdown and an interception while rushing for 38 yards.

“The O-line was blocking,” McBryde said. “The defense, they’ve been playing hard for the last four games,”

On the defense the Bulldogs allowed just 41 total yards of offense from the Vikings and came away with two interceptions and a fumble.

The Bulldogs will travel to Charlotte Latin for a nonconference road game next Friday. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.