By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

NORTON -- The Norton prep football team had just finished watching film Thursday night when head coach Lucas Melvin asked the Bluejays to stay a little longer.

The coaching staff had found a newspaper clipping that predicted the score of Friday's game between Norton and St. Francis, printed the story, put the text in a large, bold font and showed it to the squad. The article wrote St. Francis would defeat the Bluejays 26-6.

"He said, fellas, if this doesn't tick you off, then I don't know what is going to get your guys' motor going," senior linebacker Zac Dreher said.

Multiple players kept the story with them Friday during school as a reminder. Then, Norton proved the prediction wrong with a big 36-16 win against previously undefeated St. Francis on Friday at Travis Field.

Norton improved to 4-1, while St. Francis, ranked No. 2 in Class 2-1A, saw its nine-winning regular season game streak end and dropped to 4-1.

"That (article) right there just fired up our defense, so I think our defense was set and ready to go to lay the wood to them," Dreher said. "Our offense got mad at that too, because they were calling out our offense. We were trying to fire on all pistons."

St. Francis, a perennial power that was 26-4 in its last 30 games, had allowed just one team (Smith Center) to score more than 20 points since 2005. The Indians entered the game ranked second in scoring defense in Class 2-1A, allowing just 4.3 points a night.

"They were the best football team we've played this year," Indian head coach Tim Lambert said. "We knew they were a good team."

Led by junior quarterback Connor Pfannenstiel (season-high 117 passing yards), Norton passed for more than 150 yards, including two long touchdown passes.

Sophomore running back Terrell Lane even threw a 38-yard TD pass.

"We worked on a lot of passing in practice," Pfannenstiel said. "We knew that one d-back was a little slower than the other and we just realized that in film."

The victory stamped Norton as one of western Kansas' and Class 3A's top teams. The Bluejays only defeat is a 22-20 Week 3 loss against No. 1 ranked Smith Center, the closest contest in the Redmen's 59-game winning streak.

"We came in thinking, 'If we lose to Smith Center by two, we can sure as heck beat these guys,'" Dreher said.

St. Francis, which runs the Smith Center wishbone offense, opened the game with an 11 play, 61-yard drive that produced a one-yard TD run by sophomore Adam Guthmiller.

After a Norton punt, St. Francis started another drive before the Indians fumbled a handoff. Bluejay senior Matt Stanley recovered at St. Francis' 38-yard line.

"That fumble was huge," Dreher said. "I think that was a big momentum swing. We were saying we are here to play. Let's rock."

On the first play after the turnover, Lane, the team's feature running back, took a shotgun snap and lofted a TD pass down the right sideline to junior Ashton Draper. It marked Lane's first completion all season. The play had been attempted unsuccessfully against Osborne last week.

"I am pretty sure he just pulled it out of his (backside)," Pfannenstiel said with a smile. "We run it in practice, we think that he is a good enough athlete."

"We weren't getting enough protection up front, so we thought this week with our line being a little quicker than their guys, we thought we could do it," Zac Draper added.

Norton scored on a 33-yard run by Stanley shortly before the end of the first half and never relinquished the lead. In the third quarter, Pfannenstiel faked and found junior Landon Hamel for a 57-yard pass down the right sideline that set up a one-yard TD run by Pfannenstiel.

"They played well tonight and they just beat us," Lambert said. "They made some plays."

St. Francis closed within five on a three-yard run by Guthmiller before Lane answered with 13-yard TD burst for a 27-16 lead. Early in the fourth quarter, the Indians went for a first down on 4th-and-3 from their own 21. Raile was stuffed at the line of scrimmage and gained just two yards.

"We tried to pinch the tackles and get the nose to push the center back into them and tried to prevent it," Dreher said. "It worked pretty well actually, probably the best it had all night."

Raile, who had 1,444 yards last season and averaged 8.1 yards per carry this fall, was limited to 137 yards on 27 carries, his lowest total in a month.

St. Francis was held nearly 60 yards under its season rushing average of 278 yards per game.

The Bluejays tackled and wrapped up better than they had in previous contests.

"We knew that was something we had to work on," Pfannenstiel said. "Coaches saw that too and they were mad. We realized that."

After the stop, Pfannenstiel tossed a 36-yard TD pass to a wide-open Hamel that gave the Bluejays a 34-16 lead. A Norton safety tacked on the final points of a big victory that started with some Thursday motivation.

"I think a lot of guys kept (the article) in their pockets or put them in their lockers, so every time they pulled a pencil out of their pocket or go to their locker, it was 'Hey, they think they are going to win," Dreher said. "Let's show them what we can do."