SLIPPERY ROCK — Slippery Rock High School scored touchdowns on its first six offensive possessions Friday night en route to an easy 55-13 football victory over visiting district rival Franklin.

Franklin (1-7) played Friday’s game without 11 players suspended for violating team rules.

But the Rockets (7-1) didn’t think about that, Slippery Rock coach Brendan Hathaway said.

“Our mindset tonight was to come out and play Slippery Rock football,” he said. “We wanted to get the taste of last week (loss at Grove City) out of our mouths.”

“Plus, this is Senior Night and our seniors are unbeaten on this field, so we wanted to keep that intact. And we needed to get some of our younger guys in the game and let them jell a little, which I thought they did. They stepped up and played very well in the second half.”

The Rockets’ subs played the entire second half, all of which was playing with a running clock due to the implementation of the mercy clock after the hosts roared to a 42-0 halftime advantage.

As if the halftime and final scores don’t illustrate how lopsided the action was, consider these numbers:

Slippery Rock enjoyed a 283 to minus-4 margin in total offense at the end of one half of action.

The Rockets finished the game with a 385-116 total yardage advantage that included minus-14 rushing yards for the visitors.

The hosts attempted only four passes in the game, all of which came in the opening 18 minutes of action.

Seven different Rockets scored a touchdown, all of which came on rushing attempts.

Senior kicker Cole McCandless booted five extra points and backup Mark Cessar added two PATs.

Junior Frank Conlon led the winning attack with 122 rushing yards on only four carries, including touchdown trots that covered 45 and 55 yards.

Sophomore Jake Whitmer, normally a wingback who played the final two and a half quarters at quarterback, added 99 yards on seven carries, including a 62-yard TD run in the fourth quarter when Franklin simply failed to tackle him.

Franklin senior quarterback Kyle Ritchey passed for 130 yards but was sacked six times.

Junior running back Chris Gaul scored the first Slippery Rock touchdown on a 4-yard run to cap a 35-yard, seven-play scoring drive set up by a long punt return by Whitmer midway through the opening quarter of action.

The Rockets moved 59 yards in five plays on their second possession. Senior quarterback Ryan Currie’s 8-yard TD run capped the drive with 90 seconds left to play in the first quarter.

Conlon’s first TD run, a 45-yard jaunt, finished off a three-play, 50-yard drive and gave the Rockets a 21-0 lead with 11:04 left to play before halftime.

Senior running back Joey Meyer sprinted 14 yards for a touchdown with 7:31 left in the half to cap a four-play, 58-yard drive and make it a 28-0 score.

Conlon’s 55-yard TD run with 6:07 left before the intermission closed out a two-play drive and pushed the hosts’ lead to 35-0 before senior Nathan Seekford burst into the end zone from a yard out with 2:47 left in the half to make the score 42-0.

Franklin opened the second half of action with a successful onside kick and rode the momentum of that play to move 49 yards against Slippery Rock’s second-team defense to score a touchdown. Chris Kahle ran in from 3 yards out to end a six-play, 49-yard scoring drive by the Knights that trimmed the deficit to 42-7 with 7:21 left to play in the third quarter.

Whitmer’s 62-yard journey through arm tackles and into the end zone with 11:03 left to play in the game pushed the margin back to 42 points at 49-7. A 25-yard sprint by sophomore Brandon McKnight with 3:12 left accounted for the final Rockets’ TD.

Franklin’s second and final TD was scored with 21 seconds left to play, senior kicker-turned-wide receiver Logan Mooney catching a 20-yard pass from Ritchey.