Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Springfield’s Brayden Sturm runs out of bounds while Martin County West’s Rylan Cutler tries to make the tackle during a Southwest District, South Subdistrict football game at Riverside Park in Springfield on Wednesday.

SPRINGFIELD — After the first quarter of Wednesday night’s Southwest District, South Subdistrict football game ended with a unique 2-0 Springfield lead over Martin County West, it appeared that a defensive battle was in store.

The Tigers had other plans.

Behind Jakob Nachreiner’s five touchdown passes and a stifling defense, the Tigers ended up shutting out the Mavericks 50-0 at Riverside Park.

Nachreiner finished with 311 yards through the air, with both Sam Pidde and Brayden Sturm getting two touchdown receptions apiece. Pidde finished with 128 yards receiving, while Sturm had 122 yards. Carter Olson also had a touchdown reception and 58 yards receiving.

While the game was originally scheduled for Thursday, it was bumped up to Wednesday to avoid the likely incoming rain. With one less day to prepare, the Tigers didn’t seem bothered by it.

“It was definitely kind of a surprise when I first heard about [the switch to Wednesday],” Pidde said. “But I think we were already kind of prepared there because we had film up already and a lot of our players, we do a really good job of watching film.

“So I think just going into this game, we already knew most of their plays because we have a couple of linebackers that — they already know most of the plays before they happen. So as a group, we all do our job and we all get ready fairly early than most teams do and I think that gives us a good advantage.”

Ashton Toll rushed for 60 yards and a TD and also led the team in tackles on the night with nine.

“We’re just here to get better every time,” Toll said. “We’re looking for our end goal, so we’re trying to get better. The end of the season is when we want to be our best, so we’re going up.”

Gavin Vanderwerf added 49 yards rushing and a TD.

After Sturm had an interception on the Mavericks’ first drive of the game, the Tigers had the ball at the MCW 14-yard line. But the Tigers went nowhere but back 4 yards and ended up seeing Nachreiner throw an incompletion to turn the ball over on downs.

But the Tigers’ defense stayed tough and forced the Mavericks to set up for a punt deep in their own territory. On that punt attempt, a high snap to punter Talon Kettner went into the end zone and was covered up by Kettner for a safety and a 2-0 Tigers lead with 7:37 left in the first quarter.

Neither team could get much offense going the rest of the quarter until the Tigers started to break things open in the second. After a long 13-play drive carried into the second quarter, MCW punted to Pidde, who had a nice return up to the Tigers 40.

Olson then had a catch and run to the MCW 27 on the first play of the Tigers’ next drive before a 27-yard pass found Sturm in the end zone for an 8-0 Springfield lead with 8:24 left in the half.

The Tigers forced another MCW punt and then took just one play to score again as Nachreiner found Pidde down the right sideline for a 58-yard TD and a 16-0 lead after a 2-point conversion catch by Toll.

With MCW finally gaining ground on a long drive and getting into the red zone with a little more than a minute to go in the first half, Vanderwerf snatched a pass away from MCW quarterback Lucas Larson at the line of scrimmage for an interception.

Two plays saw Springfield go up another touchdown as Nachreiner scrambled to the Springfield 30 and followed that up with a 70-yard TD pass to Pidde down the sideline for a 22-0 Tigers halftime lead.

The Tigers then got a 12-yard TD reception from Olson and a 2-point run by Sam Rummel, a 70-yard TD pass to Sturm and a 57-yard TD run by Toll to lead 43-0.

The Tigers capped their scoring off with a 4-yard TD run by Vanderwerf late in the third quarter.

Pidde, while just 5-foot-7 and 135 pounds, made several big plays in the game on both sides of the ball, picking up seven tackles, a sack and a fourth-quarter interception.

“It’s definitely good having teams underestimate me because I know what I can do as a player,” Pidde said. “So just as a free safety playing since freshman year, my size has always been not as good the other teams’, but I feel like I’ve always done a really good job of just playing as myself and being able to get every ball that I can and doing what it takes to win.”

Both teams made several substitutions in the fourth quarter, with the Tigers allowing freshman quarterback Parker Kuehn to throw and complete two passes for 14 yards.

Also for the Tigers on defense, Danny Rogotzke and Rummel each had six tackles, while Mitchell Streich had a sack.

Springfield (6-1) is at Windom Area for a 7 p.m. game Wednesday, while MCW (3-4) hosts St. James Area on Wednesday.