COEUR d’ALENE — The Sandpoint Bulldogs couldn’t hang onto the ball, couldn’t tackle and couldn’t keep the Coeur d’Alene Vikings out of their backfield Friday night.

The result — a 55-7 shellacking by the Vikings on homecoming at Viking Field.

4A Sandpoint (2-2) trailed 49-7 at the half, and committed six turnovers for the game against 5A Coeur d’Alene (3-1), ranked fourth in the state.

“I thought they played very well; they’re a good football team. That’s the worst we’ve ever tackled in history,” Sandpoint coach Mike Mitchell said. “And I don’t know why we picked tonight to play that poorly. I just told the kids we’re going to internalize this. We didn’t give our opponent a respectable ballgame tonight, and we’re not used to that.”

Zach Keiser, in his first game back since suffering a foot injury in the season opener, rushed for 174 yards and three touchdowns on 18 carries for Coeur d’Alene. Chad Chalich passed for five touchdowns, two each to Jake Matheson and Matt Lambert.

Matheson also had two interceptions, and the Vikings recovered four Bulldog fumbles. Sandpoint fumbled eight times in the game.

Anthony Gold scored the game’s first touchdown for Sandpoint 3 minutes into the game on a 3-yard run, but the Vikings held him to 56 yards on 15 carries for the game. The lone touchdown came after a blocked punt by Derek Lang.

After Coeur d’Alene tied it on Keiser’s 33-yard run less than a minute later, Sandpoint drove to the Viking 32, where Gold fumbled and Coeur d’Alene’s Matt Howard recovered.

From that point on, the Vikings dominated the rest of the half, scoring on their last six possessions of the half. On Sandpoint’s next six drives following that lost fumble, the Bulldogs totaled minus-14 yards, lost two more fumbles and suffered an interception.

Sandpoint’s quarterbacks were sacked six times against the blitzing Vikings. The Bulldogs finished with 18 rushing yards and were outgained 411-105.

“We didn’t hold up,” Mitchell said. “We worked all week at handling the blitz ... we didn’t pick up their linebacker blitzes and they got pressure on us. We’re a much better football team than we just looked like.”

Linebacker Luther Morgan returned a fumble 60 yards for one of the few Sandpoint highlights.

Sandpoint plays host to Lewiston next Friday.

Sandpoint  7   0    0   0 — 7

C d’A       14  35   6   0 — 55

Spt — Anthony Gold 3 run (Cole Fuhrman kick)

Cd’A — Zach Keiser 33 run (Parker Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Keiser 31 run (Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Keiser 4 run (Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Matt Lambert 12 pass from Chad Chalich (Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Jake Matheson 17 pass from Chalich (Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Lambert 13 pass from Chalich (Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Deon Watson 39 pass from Chalich (Wilson kick)

Cd’A — Matheson 40 pass from Chalich (kick failed)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Spt, Morgan 4-11, Gold 15-56, Hawkins 8-(-6), Schmid 7-(-44), Nikssarian 1-(-1), Brown 1-1, Kingsley 1-1. Cd’A, Keiser 18-174, Turbin 1-7, Chalich 4-2, DeHaas 6-26, Comack 2-2, Johnson 3-31.

PASSING — Spt, Hawkins 7-15-2-40, Schmid 3-10-0-47. Cd’A, Chalich 9-14-0-165, DeHaas 2-5-0-4.

RECEIVING — Spt, Nikssarian 5-32, Gold 1-7, Magro 1-1, Clad 2-36, Heuscher 1-11. Cd’A, Martinez 1-1, Lambert 3-32, Matheson 2-57, Watson 2-61, Turbin 1-14, Comack 1-(-3), Kane 1-1.