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ASHLAND - Under most circumstances, there might be reason for concern if your top running back had the ball knocked out of his grasp on the second play of the game, turning it over to a fired-up home team.

Not so Thursday night, however.

Norton High's Sean Ryan must have used the lost fumble as motivation, and then some. The Lancer senior went on to rush for 198 yards on 10 carries and score five touchdowns - all before halftime - as undefeated Norton (3-0) trounced winless Ashland (0-3), 42-12, in the Tri-Valley League opener for both teams.

"The kids did a great job, they executed," said Lancers' coach Robb McCoy. "We came here and we played our style of football. That's what we want to do, and it doesn't matter who we're playing. We just need to play Lancer football."

"Lancer football," contrary to appearances, is not just Ryan running wild and everyone else watching in awe - although there was a lot of that, especially on his fourth TD run, a weaving, twisting and darting effort to spring a 93-yard gallop on the first play of a second-quarter possession. According to McCoy, a big part of the Lancers' signature style involves the precise and heady passing of junior quarterback Brendan St. Germain, who completed all six of his passes for 86 yards and a touchdown (a perfect 158.3 NFL-method passer rating).

"Sean is just phenomenal," McCoy said, "but Saint did a great job tonight of running the stuff we wanted him to run. We had a couple of checks for him and he did a great job ... you kept seeing him check to (Brian) Desmond on those bubble screens, and we would have thrown it as many times as we needed to."

The precision of the Lancer offense, and the efforts of the defense to limit the Clockers to just 13 yards of offense in the first quarter, made it possible for McCoy to give his second-stringers a full half of valuable experience.

"I told the twos at halftime, 'I'm playing all you guys and I'm going to coach you the same way I coach the ones, and I'm going to expect the same effort out of you,' and I thought they fought and did a good job," McCoy said. "They gave up six points in the second half and that's what the ones gave up."

It was an incredible luxury to have a 28-0 lead after just 4:17 of actual possession time.

Forcing Ashland into three-and-outs on all four first-quarter possessions, the Lancers struck quickly each time they had the ball.

The first score came four plays into Norton's second possession, a 50-yard gallop by Ryan on a pitchout around right end with 7:03 left in the opening quarter.

Norton got the ball back on the Ashland 39, and St. Germain got all but one of those yards on a nice throw to Darren Doucette down the left sideline, setting up an easy jaunt up the middle for Ryan on the next play.

A sack by Phil Rizzo buried Ashland deep in its own territory, and an ensuing 20-yard punt put Norton in business at the Clockers' 32. This time, Desmond was the star, running an end-around for 14 yards and catching a pair of 9-yard passes, the latter for a 21-0 lead with 1:56 left in the quarter.

After another Ashland punt and a 42-yard punt return by Desmond, Ryan made it 28-0 on a pitchout to the left from 16 yards out with 28 seconds left in the quarter. Not before Ashland's spread-offense quarterback, Matt Henry, broke a 34-yard run on the last play of the quarter were the Clockers in positive numbers for total offense in the game. That play, it turned out, was the springboard to an Ashland score. On the third try from the Norton 7, Henry found Jim O'Brien in the end zone to trim the deficit to 28-6.

But any joy in the home town from that, and a holding penalty on the Lancer kickoff return that started Norton's drive on its own 7, went up in smoke as Ryan tore through the Clockers on the way to his 93-yard TD run with 8:58 left in the half.

He added one more score, a 3-yard sweep with 2:09 left, at the end of Norton's longest possession of the half - seven plays, 54 yards, consuming 4:51. Steve Gilmore added a key 18-yard reception in the drive.

Running against Norton's substitutes, Kyle Daly racked up 58 yards on nine carries on the Clockers' opening possession of the second half, leading to his 3-yard TD run with 4:23 left in the third quarter. Norton sophomore Jonathan Sicard did a great job of killing the clock down the stretch, carrying seven times for 48 yards.

Now 1-0 in the Tri-Valley, the Lancers play host to Dover-Sherborn a week from tonight.