SHARON — There are two things you can't coach in football: speed on offense and quickness on defense.

Unfortunately for the Slippery Rock High football team, the Rockets saw plenty of both from Sharon in a 34-0 loss Friday night.

"Well, you either have or it or you chase it. That is all I can say," said Slippery Rock coach Glenn Hazlet about dealing with the Tigers' speed. "They are a good team and we knew that. I would like to have stuck with them a little better than we did, but we are so young and inexperienced."

Going into the game, Sharon coach Bob Fromm knew the Rockets defense was tough against the run, so he put the ball into the hands of his quarterback, Ronnie Howard.

Howard completed 12-of-16 attempts for 321 yards and three touchdowns.

"It (his success) was a little bit of everything," said Howard. "The coaches did a great job of calling the plays against the coverages they were giving us and the line did a great job blocking for me."

Following an exchange of fumbles on the first two possessions, the Tigers wasted no time asserting themselves, needing only three plays to turn their takeaway into six quick points.

Howard scooted for 64 yards to the Slippery Rock 5-yard line. Two plays later, Kevin Brown bulled over from the 1 for the score.

Again unable to sustain any type of drive, the Rockets (0-4) punted to the Tigers at the Sharon 40.

From there, it took Sharon (3-1) only four plays to hit paydirt, the touchdown coming on a 47-yard pass from Howard to Louis Brown.

After putting together a short drive of 30 yards to open the game, the Rockets, unable to deal with the swarming Sharon defense, went three-and-out on their next three possessions.

"That is what it is when you have kids who haven't played a lot," added Hazlet. "We're getting better. We played a really good team tonight, and I don't feel the final score is any indication of the team we have. These (Slippery Rock) kids played hard."

While the Sharon defense was bottling up the Rocket offense, the Tigers put their third score on the board midway through the second period when Howard tossed his second TD of the night, a 17-yard effort to Steven Bittler.

With the Rockets offense still stymied by the Tigers defense, Sharon put the final two scores on the board in the third period when Louis Brown hauled in his second TD pass of the night from Howard covering 68 yards before Cameron Brown capped the game on a 3-yard run.

Despite the lopsided loss, Hazlet said his can find something to build on.

"I see things getting better every week," he said. "We have some teams coming (on our schedule) that we can play with. I am optimistic and by no means am I running a white flag up the pole."

Although he didn't find his way into the end zone, Justin Angerett led the Rockets with 77 yards on 16 carries.