Once the Bears took the field, they couldn’t stop Xander Hind and the Randolph Cardinals.

Hind ran 13 times for 189 yards and three scores as Randolph found the end zone on seven of eight offensive possessions en route to a 47-0 nonleague victory.

“Xanny’s going to be the guy,” Randolph head coach Brent Brown said of his starting tailback. “That was a test for our offense line, regardless of who we’re playing.”

At times, it didn’t matter who was running the ball for the Cardinals.

Randolph’s Xander Hind runs away from JFK defender Michael Thomas-Zeltman during Friday’s nonleague game in Randolph. P-J photo by Valory S. Isaacson

Quarterback Carson Conley kept the ball five times for 41 yards and a touchdown while fullback Luke Pagett had eight carries for 52 yards and a touchdown.

Even with the game in hand, backup fullback Payton Slade ran six times for 48 yards; Christian Burch picked up 16 yards and a touchdown; and Michael Bohall scored on a 1-yard plunge.

“You can’t ask for anything better than that. We came out of it healthy,” Brown said. “I thought the kids played hard. I thought we were physical. It was a little bit of a different atmosphere than we’ve had here in a while.”

Brown knew his offensive line would be impressive entering the season. After one game, opponents have been put on notice.

“I thought they did a pretty good job on the right side,” the veteran coach said of his offensive line that includes center Dillon Schrader, right guard Elial Bryan, right tackle Ryan Carpenter, left guard Sterling Skye and left tackle Gavin Stearns. “We went back to the left side and they did a pretty good job.”

On the Cardinals first play from scrimmage — after a bad JFK punt — Hind took a handoff off tackle behind the right side of the line, followed a lead block from Pagett and raced 30 yards to paydirt.

“A guy lined up in the C gap, which is the wrong thing to do. The end took him down and Luke had an awesome block,” Hind said. “I bounced it outside, made a cut and was home free.”

Randolph’s second drive covered a little more distance, 46 yards, and ended with Conley keeping the ball for a 13-yard score.

After the Bears’ third three-and-out of the first quarter, Randolph took over at the JFK 38-yard line. On the second play of the drive — and first of the second quarter — Hind scampered for a 33-yard touchdown and a 20-0 lead.

“I couldn’t ask for a better line,” Hind said. “They are like my brothers. I love these guys.”

The Cardinals were finally forced to punt midway through the second quarter, but that would be their only drive that was stopped.

Pagett capped Randolph’s first drive of the second half with a 5-yard plunge up the middle and Hind’s night came to an end at the end of the next drive. The junior took a late pitch from Conley along the JFK sideline, stayed inbounds, made a pair of Bears defenders miss and raced 38 yards for his third score.

“I was about 2 yards from the sideline. … The quarterback attacks the first guy he sees and dumps it off,” Hind said. “We made a few good cuts and had awesome blocking up the field.”

The Cardinals then turned their offense over to the reserves as Burch and Bohall picked up fourth-quarter scores.

JFK threatened to score just once. As the second quarter wound down, the Bears put together a six-play drive aided by great field position. On second-and-1 from the Randolph 27-yard line, Michael Thomas-Zeltman ran 22 yards for a first down at the 5-yard line. After a pair of 1-yard runs, JFK took a 5-yard penalty. On third-and-goal, Thomas-Zeltman was stopped for a 1-yard loss before quarterback Adam Lewandowski threw incomplete on fourth down.

“We had a pretty good goal-line stand,” Brown said.

All told, the Cardinals ran for 347 yards while holding the Bears to 72 yards of total offense.

“We had hoped between Jaiden (Huntington) now getting comfortable at middle linebacker and putitng Luke (Pagett) at that free safety spot,” Brown said, ” … those guys kind of cleaned it up.”

Randolph will likely face a stiffer test in Week 2 when the defending Section VI Class D champions come to town for both teams’ league opener.

“One-hundred percent,” Brown said when asked if the nonleague JFK game was a good thing to have before next Friday’s league opener. “One-thousand percent.”

When asked about the matchup with the Titans, Hind said: “It’s go time, baby.”

JFK 0 0 0 0 — 0

Randolph 14 6 14 13 — 47

Ran–Hind 30 run (run failed)

Ran–Conley 13 run (Hind run)

Ran–Hind 33 run (pass failed)

Ran–Pagett 5 run (kick failed)

Ran–Hind 38 run (Bush pass from Conley)

Ran–Burch 5 run (Huntington kick)

Ran–Bohall 1 run (kick failed)