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Grants Pass running back Brian Howard (36), who scored two touchdowns Friday, tries to elude South's Paul Kralik (88). Photo by Jim Craven Cavemen clobber outmanned Panthers By DON HUNT The Grants Pass Cavemen came into Spiegelberg Stadium on Friday night looking to reestablish themselves as a playoff contender in the Southern Oregon Conference. Mission accomplished. One week after suffering a 42-0 loss to top-ranked Ashland, the Cavemen lowered the boom on South Medford, 44-0. Grants Pass quarterback Trent Thompson completed 11 of 16 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns to fuel the rout and the Cavemen amassed a whopping 523 yards in total offense. "Ashland knocked us down a notch and we really wanted to redeem ourselves tonight," Thompson said. "We made a lot of mistakes last week -- especially on offense -- so we wanted to come out tonight and move the ball every time we had it." The Cavemen (1-1) did exactly that in the opening two periods as they scored touchdowns on all four of their possessions, marching on drives of 61, 60, 71 and 81 yards. Grants Pass then added a safety 43 seconds before intermission when Joe Mellow blocked a punt deep in South Medford territory and forced Panther punter Paul Kralik to fall on the ball in the South Medford end zone. "We got them down quick and that gave us confidence," Grants Pass coach Tom Blanchard said. "This was a big game for us. We wanted to reestablish ourselves as a good football team, a playoff team, and the last thing we needed was to start the season 0-2." Thompson was nearly perfect in the first half as he completed 10 of 15 passes for 225 yards, including touchdown throws of 35 yards to Casey Stewart and 14 yards to Dustin Kochis. Thompson played only one series in the second half and made the most of it, flipping a 39-yard scoring toss to Stewart. GP's other scores came on 1- and 4-yard runs up the middle by Brian Howard. "Thompson was tremendous," Blanchard said. "He wasn't throwing the ball well at all in the pregame warmups and that had me nervous, but once the game started he was right on the money. That's as good of performance as I've seen in a while." With South Medford in man-to-man pass coverage much of the time, Thompson and Co. burned the Panthers' cornerbacks repeatedly on deep fly patterns. "We only had to beat one guy and Trent was laying the ball right in there on the deep routes," said Stewart, who had five catches for 132 yards. "This was a real confidence-booster for us. It makes last week disappear." The only bad news for GP was a badly bruised hand suffered by David Klatt, its star defensive player. The inside linebacker was scheduled for X-rays today. South Medford, meanwhile, had little to feel good about. The Panthers (0-2) did manage to drive from their own 20 to the Grants Pass 27 late in the first period, thanks mostly to a 35-yard pass from Steve Bechler to Eric McKenzie. But after Luke Schoreberger gained 5 yards on first down, Steve McQuade was thrown for a 2-yard loss and Bechler threw two incomplete passes and the drive stalled. The Panthers, who were outgained 327-90 in the first half and 523-92 for the game, didn't come close to scoring in the second half. "I didn't think we'd get beat his badly," South Medford coach Larry Walker said. "Our kids never quit but we just got handled physically. "It got to the point where I was looking for the light switch." Walker said South threw a lot of defensive looks at Thompson in an attempt to get pressure on the GP quarterback. But nothing worked. "Their offensive line really protected him well," Walker said. By comparison, Bechler was sacked five times, knocked down on several other occasions and completed 4 of 14 passes for 71 yards.