RIVER FALLS — River Falls took the field for the season opener, and they had their work cut out for them. Stevens Point loaded the bus with a whole lot of size and even more talent. The Wildcats came up short Thursday, losing 41-18 after some early struggles.

The Wildcats made a run all the way to the State Semi-finals a year ago, but the team lost some key seniors, coming from essentially every position group. Junior quarterback Colton Nesbitt and junior running back Trevor Bartlett took over the starting jobs in the backfield this year, and there were certainly some positive signs of things to come. Nesbitt is forming a strong connection already with senior receiver Ryker O’Keefe, who had six receptions for 158 yards and a touchdown, and had a second long touchdown just go through his hands. O’Keefe is already approaching his 255 yards and two touchdowns from a year ago.

Bartlett caught a pass from Nesbitt in the early fourth quarter and ran in a straight line, sitting down four defenders on his way to a 19-yard touchdown. Bartlett got in the mix a bit a year ago, finding the end zone three times on 54 carries when he got the chance during Joseph Tarasewicz’s record season, nearly rushing for 2,000 yards.

“I thought a bunch of guys did some really good things. I mean, shoot, we’re starting a new quarterback, new running back, a lot of guys that haven’t played a lot of snaps before. I was pleased with some of the opportunities we had to score, and I thought in the second half we did a nice job but for a couple plays on defense,” Head Coach Ryan Scherz said.

Stevens Point took advantage of some early Wildcat mistakes, pushing to a 21-3 lead after the first quarter. The talented squad scored another touchdown to open the second quarter before the Wildcats found the endzone for the first time in 2026. It was Nesbitt rolling out to find O’Keefe deep coming across the middle of the field, torching his man and running all the way to a 90-yard touchdown.

“There’s a mixture of some youth. We’re playing some young guys in a couple spots that they took advantage of, but I would roll with those kids 100%. There’s some things that I’m more disappointed in in just how we decided to respond to adversity and went negative despite the messaging being pretty clear that we couldn’t afford that type of behavior in our program,” Scherz said. “I can live with losing, they’re a good team. I don’t like losing feeling like we aren’t doing the things that we talk about.”

Scherz said everyone needs to get back to focusing on the work and attitudes that improve the team from week to week. He said the improvement from week one to week two is always one of the most important factors during a season.

“For the most part, the kids played hard, but if we don’t make some big jumps from week one to week two and kind of eliminate excuses, it’s going to be a long year,” Scherz said.

The Wildcats now travel to take on Marshfield on the road Friday. The Tigers took out Rice Lake 44-6 in the opening week. Rice Lake is consistently in the top portion of the Big Rivers Conference standings, so the Wildcats know they will have to find mid-season form to get the job done.