EDMONDS — It’s back to the basics for the Shorecrest football team after last week’s blowout loss to Meadowdale.

Missed opportunities on offense and defense haunted the Scots throughout the night as the Mavericks pounded Shorecrest 56-21 in a Western Conference South Division game Oct. 1 at Edmonds Stadium.

By scoring touchdowns on five of its first six offensive possessions, Meadowdale put the game out of reach by the end of the first half.

“The big thing was we didn’t tackle very well on defense,” Shorecrest coach Mike Wollan said. “When you don’t make tackles on defense, you see what happens.”

A strong effort by several different Mavericks certainly played a role in the Scots’ downfall, but Wollan said his players had chances to stem the Meadowdale onslaught.

“We initially hit their guys quite a bit of times near the line of scrimmage and our inability to hold the tackles allowed those guys to break free,” Wollan said. “They are a good team and they’ve got strong runners. You can’t try to arm tackle those guys or they’re going to hurt you and they showed that tonight.”

The Shorecrest offense initially looked like it might be able to match Meadowdale touchdown for touchdown.

Quarterback Jon Glancy guided the Scots on a five-play, 78-yard drive to start the game. Glancy scampered in for a 21-yard touchdown less than two minutes into the first quarter.

The Mavericks responded with a six-play, 63-yard scoring drive that tied the score at 7-all. Meadowdale quarterback Demetri Huffman found wide receiver Jake Linton on a 19-yard scoring strike at the 8:05 mark.

Shorecrest seemed poised to retake the lead but a Glancy pass was picked off by Meadowdale defensive back Alex McDonald, who ran the ball back for a 66-yard touchdown to give the Mavericks a 14-7 advantage with about a minute left in the first quarter.

The Scots had to punt on their next two possessions and Meadowdale upped its lead to 28-7 on a 28-yard touchdown run by senior running back Travis Anderson and an 11-yard score by senior running back Justin Lucero.

“I thought we could man up and physically get after them a little bit and we were able to,” Meadowdale coach Mark Stewart said. “We just kind of wore them down a little.”

Shorecrest had a chance to answer Meadowdale and was able to move the ball with some success.

“Offensively after that first drive, we had some dropped balls and (that) kind of stopped the momentum,” Wollan said. “Obviously not being able to stop them, we needed to score with them. We just didn’t get it done.”

The Scots cut the deficit to 28-14 on a 44-yard pass from Glancy to Kevin Ramos at the 5:02 mark of the second quarter.

Meadowdale closed out the first half with a pair of touchdowns to seal the victory. Lucero scored on 5-yard run and then a turnover led to a 1-yard run by Anderson with six seconds left in the quarter.

“They’re efficient. They’re disciplined,” Wollan said of the Mavericks. “They’ve got guys moving in every direction. Their cutback ability by their running backs was tremendous … we didn’t have an answer.”

Stewart was concerned about the Shorecrest offense coming into the game.

“Shorecrest is a really scary team because they can put the points on the board,” he said. “Their guys make plays. We have guys that make plays too. We were able to come back and make enough to get them shut down.”

Shorecrest had hoped to come out strong in the second half and establish its running game.

But Meadowdale’s Ben King returned the opening kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown, which seemed to deflate the Scots.

“Any momentum that we tried to get going at halftime, they took the wind right out of the sails,” Wollan said.

Shorecrest junior running back Jesse Hoffman closed out the scoring with a 3-yard run early in the fourth quarter. Hoffman finished with 71 yards on 10 carries. He also caught three passes for 33 yards.

Shorecrest converted on only one of eight on third downs, while Meadowdale was six of nine. The Mavericks had 22 first downs compared to 11 for the Scots.

“We’ve still got a lot of good things going for us this year and now hopefully these guys understand what we say in practice and things we’ve got to work on,” Wollan said. “Hopefully, next week we’ll come out and do a better job.”