SLEEPY EYE — Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s remained unbeaten after a dominant 48-0 victory over West Lutheran in 9-man South District, Central Subdistrict football action on Friday.

The Knights (5-0, 4-0 SDCS) finished the game with 473 total yards on offense, 404 in the first half alone, and limited the Warriors to just 41 total yards on offense. With the strong performance, Knights coach Brent Kucera still feels there is work to be done.

“I think defensively we definitely played really well holding them to zero,” Kucera said. “I’m very proud of the defensive play. Offensively, I thought we struggled a lot actually. We had a lot of miscues — blocking assignments. The running backs, quarterback played really well breaking a lot of tackles, making individual plays. Proud overall, but we took a step back this week offensively.”

Nick Labat got the Knights on the board right away with a 24-yard touchdown run with 10:18 left to play in the first quarter. St. Mary’s kept its foot on the gas in the first quarter with an Andrick Sanchez 1-yard touchdown run, set up after a 48-yard run by Luke Miller down the sideline.

The Knights continued to roll in the second quarter with two rushing touchdowns from Sanchez, one for 17 yards and one for 14. They also added a 44-yard touchdown run by Miller and a Labat to Miller 5-yard touchdown pass to lead 42-0 at the half.

Sanchez added another touchdown run to his total after a 14-yard run put the Knights up 48-0 in the third quarter. Sanchez finished the game with 110 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns.

Miller led the Knights with 134 rushing yards, while Labat had 76 rushing yards, a rushing touchdown, 118 yards through the air and a passing touchdown. Labat also had an interception for the defense.

Cole Krzmarzick recovered a fumble on defense for the Knights.

Kucera is proud of his teams’ success so far this season and said that he’s in no hurry to look too far down the road.

“You just gotta take it one game at a time, try to get better every week and scheme for the next opponent,” Kucera said. “That’s really all you can do. You can’t look past that.”

The Knights travel to Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart for a 7 p.m. 9-man South District, Central Subdistrict game on Friday.