St. Paul’s faced a fourth down at the Hammond 3-yard line early in the game Thursday night, but with the Wolves’ offense struggling through the first three games, head coach Ken Sears knew he could not afford to settle for a field goal.

Instead, Alec Duncan found an open Jermaine Sams in the left side of the end zone. St. Paul’s would never trail after that, pulling away in the second half for a 42-7 win in District 7-5A play at Tornado Alley.

“We knew we had to get into the end zone,” Sears said. “Our first four weeks that’s been the problem. We’ve been leaning on our defense, and we needed to get into the end zone. We were determined to get in there.”

St. Paul'€™s Matt Koepp (43) makes the tackle on Hammond'€™s leading rusher Justin Betts as teammate senior linebacker Jordan Bodenheimer (34) supports on the play. St. Paul'€™s dealt the Hammond Tors a 42-7 loss on Friday night in Hammond. (Photo by Mike Kiral/Daily Star)

The Wolves (3-1, 1-1) got its offense on track as Duncan completed 8-of-14 passes for 169 yards and two touchdowns. Mikhail Washington rushed 12 times for 130 yards and a score. Josh Pereira also broke the century mark, getting 104 yards on nine attempts. Stephon Smith scored twice and had 83 yards on nine carries.

Hammond (0-3, 0-2) broke through for its first score of the season when Trevor Ragan found Terrence Bridges on a 6-yard pass with 10:35 left in the second quarter. Ragan finished 2-of-8 for 9 yards. Justin Betts led the Tors with 56 yards on 16 carries. De’aarius Bland ran for 26 yards and also completed a 31-yard halfback pass to Ivory Gorman.

St. Paul’s drove from the Hammond 48 on its first drive, but three plays from the 5 netted just two yards.

But on fourth down from the 3, Duncan found Sams on a quick hit in the left side of the end zone. Jake Saltalamacchia added the extra point for a 7-0 lead with 6:02 left in the first quarter.

Pereira opened the Wolves’ next drive with a 53-yard run to the Hammond 22, setting up Duncan’s keeper from the 4 four plays later. Saltalamacchia’s kick made it 14-0 with 14 seconds left in the quarter.

Mario Bell returned the ensuing kickoff 54 yards to the St. Paul’s 21. Five plays later, Bridges out-leapt his defender to make a juggling catch in the back of the end zone. Brandon Thomas’ extra point cut the deficit to 14-7.

Hammond held St. Paul’s and took over at its 38. The Tors got to the Wolves’ 45, but a mishandled handoff led to a 10-yard loss and Hammond was forced to punt.

“We were moving, and we had the mistake,” Tors head coach Rusty Barrilleaux said. “The back didn’t take enough steps to get in front of the quarterback, and they ran into one another. We had run that play five plays before that and were successful on it. It was little things like that.

“It just seems like we can’t catch the breaks. But I’m just proud of those kids. They played hard and kept playing.”

St. Paul’s answered in its next drive as Duncan hit Smith on a wheel play down the left sidelines for a 53-yard touchdown. Saltalamacchia added the extra point for a 21-7 lead with 2:14 left in the half.

Duncan and Smith connected again on a 30-yard gain early in the third quarter, setting up Smith’s 8-yard touchdown run. Saltalamacchia’s kick increased the lead to 28-7 with 7:23 left in the quarter.

“They caught a couple of big ones, and that hurt because we had done really well a couple of times on defense,” Barrilleaux said. “We had them in some fourth downs and some long yardage situations. It wasn’t for a lack of effort. It might have been mental breakdowns at that point. We have to correct that as coaches next week and keep drilling it to them so it becomes instinct.”

Bland’s halfback pass to Gorman and a roughing-the-passer call on the next play gave Hammond a first down at the St. Paul’s 33. But four plays later, Jon-Michael Williams’ pass was tipped and intercepted by Beau Trist at the Wolves’ 4.

St. Paul’s then drove 96 yards in nine plays with Smith scoring from 7 yards out. Duncan found Andrew Madary on a 30-yard pass on fourth-and-11 from the 39. Saltalamacchia made it 35-7 with 53 seconds left in the third quarter.

Washington scored the final touchdown on a 9-yard run with 5:45 remaining. Washington ran for 72 yards on the 83-yard drive. “Hat’s off to Hammond,” Sears said. “They played hard. They had opportunities to get into it because of their hard play. We made some mistakes, and they took advantage of it. But we came back and started moving the chains and made some plays. We got a few big plays here and there and after that we kind of got on a roll,” Sears said.