Lake Oswego's LaMarcus Bell finds running room during Friday's home game against South Medford. (Jim Beseda photo)

LAKE OSWEGO — LaMarcus Bell and the Lake Oswego Lakers football team did almost anything they wanted to do against the South Medford Panthers on Friday night.

Bell rushed for 128 yards and three touchdowns and the Lake Oswego defense came close to a shutout, leading the No. 4 Lakers to a 33-7 non-conference win over the Panthers in Friday’s season opener for both teams at Lake Oswego’s Cobb Field.

Lake Oswego quarterback Hudson Kurland threw a 41-yard touchdown pass to Liam Davis and Justin Craigwell added a 2-yard TD run for the Lakers, who finished with 326 yards offense to South Medford’s 196 yards.

“We just went out and did what we had to do — get the win,” said Bell, the flashy junior tailback whose third touchdown on a 7-yard run gave the Lakers a 33-0 lead with 15 seconds to play in the third quarter.

“I think we executed really well. I mean, we didn’t get stopped on offense until the third quarter, and then we wanted to get the goose egg on defense, but … hey, it doesn’t get better than that.”

Most of Lake Oswego’s defensive starters were on the sideline in the fourth quarter when South Medford running back Kellen Lefebvre scored on a 50-yard touchdown run, spoiling the Lakers’ shutout bid with 1:29 to play.

“The kids obviously played well,” Lake Oswego coach Steve Coury said. “I have a lot of respect for South Medford’s program and coach Bill Singler, so to beat them soundly feels good. I think we’ve got a lot of kids that can play and there’s a lot of depth, so I’m excited about that and for us to keep getting better.”

Coury would have been hard-pressed to script a better start to Friday’s game than the one the Lakers delivered.

Lake Oswego had the ball four times in the first half and came away with four touchdowns, scoring on drives that covered 60, 53, 95, and 61 yards — in that order — to take a 27-0 lead. 

The first drive consisted of four plays: a 20-yard run by Bell, a 12-yard pass from Kurland to Carson Schwindt, a 13-yard run by Bell, and a 15-yard run by Bell

The second drive ended with Kurland throwing a 41-yard strike to a wide-open Davis, who ran past the South Medford defense and caught the ball falling down in the end zone to make it 14-0 with 4:16 to play in the first quarter.

The third drive featured a Hudson Kurland-to-Baron Kurland 43-yard pass that took the ball down to the South Medford 18-yard line. From there, Bell got the ball three times and reached the end zone from 2 yards out to make it 20-0 with 9:55 left in the second quarter.

Next, the Lakers went 61 yards in nine plays, taking a 27-0 lead when Craigwell scored on a 2-yard run with 3:37 remaining in the first half.

While Lake Oswego’s offense ran up and down the field, South Medford’s offense struggled to move the ball.

The Panthers had the ball five times in the first half and they crossed the 50-yard line only twice, but they never moved the ball any deeper than the Lake Oswego 35. They also had only five first downs in the first half — the first three on Lakers’ defensive penalties and the fourth on a Kameron Rague run with 1:27 left in the second quarter.

At halftime, Lake Oswego had racked up 275 yards in offense to South Medford’s 56 yards.

This is a Panthers team that is breaking in a new starter at quarterback in junior Makana Brown along with five new starters on the offensive line. And while most of the state’s Class 6A teams played in jamborees on Friday night, Lake Oswego and South Medford were among the seven big-school teams that scrambled to complete the requisite nine practices required to play a Zero Week game before Labor Day.

Did the Panthers possibly bite off more than they were prepared to chew?

“It’s a big game, so you put in more things than we probably should have put in this week,” South Medford assistant Jason Bauer said. “I think we knew that, but it’s hard to just go with the basics. It probably would have been better for our guys, but … I don’t know.

“You’re competitive as a coach and you want to give the kids a fighting chance. But sometimes putting in maybe more than we probably could handle at that time, maybe we played a step slower because we were thinking too much. And then Lake Oswego returned a lot of guys and they run around fast in a system that they’ve run for years.

“We’ll get there. We told our guys that it’s going to be a slog, but our goal is to get better each week and fight our way to the playoffs at the end of the season.”

After Lake Oswego’s offense went three-and-out to start the second half, the Panthers strung together a 10-play, 42-yard drive that ended with Brown throwing his second interception of the game, giving the ball back to the Lakers at their own 22.

Nine plays later, the Lakers were back in the end zone, this time Bell scoring from 7 yards out just before the end of the third quarter.

Bell, the 5-foot-11, 190-pound junior who is touted as one of the top running backs in the state, finished with 16 carries for 128 yards while running behind an offensive line that features center Noah Uecker, guards Jagar Shean and Adam Williams, and tackles Jackson Graetz and Jaden Moore.

“I can’t do nothing without my line,” Bell said. “I love them so much. I might actually give them a dinner after this or give them something. That was a great game for me and I can’t do it without them.”

Coury agreed.

“Obviously, the offensive line has to play well for LaMarcus to do the things he can do,” Coury said. “But once he gets in the open field, he’s a physical guy to bring down. So, yeah, he’s a force. He’s a legit running back.

“He’s definitely a good one. The thing about him is he’s very young. He just turned 16, so he’s a young kid and there’s a lot ahead of him. I’m anxious to see how he continues to grow. He’s a hard worker and he has a lot of the intangible things to be one of the great ones. I’m looking forward to watching that happen.”

Craigwell added 34 yards on five carries, and Hudson Kurland completed 7 of 8 passes for 148 yards.

Coury, now in his 33rd season at Lake Oswego, notched career win No. 273 and moved into a tie with former Lakeridge coach Tom Smythe for ninth among the all-time winningest coaches in Oregon prep football history.

For South Medofrd, Lefebvre led the ground game with 80 yards on five carries. Bridger Foss added 29 yards on six carries and Brown had 26 yards on 10 carries.

Next up, Lake Oswego travels to take on Sunset, while South Medford visits McNary.