Montague's Jordan Degen (90), Noah Scott and Chen Martinez smother a Lake City runner Friday night in the Wildcats' 42-0 win in the opening round of the Division 6 playoffs.

MONTAGUE — Last week, the poor weather seemed to neutralize the potent offenses of the Montague Wildcats and the Fremont Packers, until the Wildcats scored two late TDs to come away with the regular-season finale win 13-0.

One week later, the weather was the same — albeit a bit warmer — but Montague didn’t seem to mind.

The Wildcats coasted to the dominating 42-0 pre-district victory Friday night over an undermanned Lake City Trojan team.

Montague moves on to host Sanford Meridian this Saturday. Game time is set for 1 p.m.

Although the score might indicate a Wildcat offensive explosion — which indeed it was — the Montague defense was even more impressive, holding the Trojans’ veer offense to just 15 total yards.

How dominant were they? Try this on for size: Lake City didn’t complete a single pass — the team’s starting QB Lee Stih was injured while kicking the contest’s first punt, replaced with back-up Jordan Jackson, who went 0-for-8 passing on the night.

“We went in wanting to stop what they do well, the veer, and our defense really got the job done,” said Wildcat head coach Pat Collins. “Our defense played real hard, got down the line, played parallel to it. Our speed really helped.”

The Wildcat offense was impressive as well, of course, piling up 341 total yards, 225 of those coming in the air. Senior QB Cody Kater connected with senior wideout Matt DeJong on 62-yard TD toss just five minutes into the game, completing two-play drive that took all of 44 seconds.

Senior defensive lineman Noah Scott jumped on a high snap fumble on the Trojans next possession, giving Montague a first-and-goal on the Lake City two. Senior Drew Pineda rumbled in two plays later from four yards out to give the Wildcats the 14-0 lead. DeJong went 6-for-6 on extra points on the night.

DeJong again showed his fleet feet on Montague’s final possession of the half. With just 11 seconds left on the clock, DeJong took a slant pass from Kater, made a move across the field and scored from 51 yards away to put his team up by three scores.

Montague churned out a 10-play, 65-yard drive on its first possession of the second half, capped by a two-yard plunge by Pineda that made it 28-0.

Three minutes into the fourth quarter, junior Anthony Root ran back a 60-yard punt to start the running clock, and from there, the Wildcats cleared the bench.

In relief of Kater, junior RC Twining took over under center, leading the Wildcats on a two-play drive, capping the it himself on a 34-yard bootleg left to provide the final result.

Collins said he liked the way his team responded to what could have been — considering the weather — a trap game.

“We knew (Lake City) wasn’t going to come here and lay down,” Collins explained. “They came here with a shot at knocking off the top-rated team in the state, so there was, I’m sure, plenty of motivation for them.

“Still, I liked the way we controlled what we could,” Collins continued. “We did what we had to do to advance.”

With an extra day of practice, Collins said he would try to have the team approach Saturday’s game the same as it any other week.

“We won’t really do anything different,” he said. “We’re looking forward to playing football on Saturday this week.”

Kater finished with 11-for-17 passing (for 225 yards) and two scores, while DeJong was the game’s leading receiver, hauling in six passes for 116 yards and two TDs. Pineda led the ground game with 56 yards on 14 carries, and scoring twice, while Twining carried for 35 yards on two carries and a score. Root finished with two catches for 83 yards as well.

Defensively, Chen Martinez led the Wildcats with six stops, with teammates Scott and Mike McClellan each finishing with five tackles each.