Correspondent photo / Michael G. Taylor Ursuline’s Tairan Davis tackles Warren G. Harding’s Marcus Crum during the Irish’s 56-20 win over the visiting Raiders.

YOUNGSTOWN — Ursuline could do no wrong offensively. From execution to efficiency and explosiveness, the Fighting Irish’s offense was firing on all cylinders.

Racking up 448 total yards, Ursuline throttled Warren G. Harding 56-20 on Friday night at Stambaugh Stadium.

“We were very on point,” Ursuline head coach Dan Reardon said. “I thought our O-line played a really clean game of football. We minimized mistakes — we talked about minimizing unforced errors and I thought we were very assignment-sharp all night long. I thought our kids played with an edge on all three units. Our kids were flying around on special teams, flying around on defense, and I’m really proud of their effort.”

Opting to receive the opening kickoff, Ursuline marched down the field 67 yards for its opening score. Quarterback Jack Ericson completed all six of his passes on the drive.

By halftime, the Irish had already amassed 344 total yards of offense and had scored 49 points. Ursuline scored a touchdown on all seven of its first half possessions.

Playing just the first half, Ericson was clicking in the passing game, as were his receivers. He finished his night 17-for-21 for 203 yards and three touchdowns. He also added two rushing touchdowns on the ground.

“Jack is a really good football player,” Reardon said. “The last four or five games last year, Jack saw the game slow down for him, and he’s playing with a lot of confidence. He understands what we’re trying to do offensively.”

DC Ferrell and Devonte Taylor were his primary targets on the night. Ferrell had three catches for 52 yards and hauled in two touchdowns. He also completed a 32-yard pass to Taylor, who was the big play threat for the Irish. He finished with 95 yards and a touchdown on five catches.

“We knew what they were going to do,” Raiders head coach Steve Arnold said. “We just didn’t execute it.”

Facing the early deficit after Ursuline’s fast start, Harding was forced to take to the air.

It didn’t help that the Raiders struggled to find any success in the running game. Three of Harding’s first five run plays went for negative yardage, and Ursuline’s defense forced 10 negative yardage plays in the first half alone, with eight coming on the ground.

With how Ursuline’s defensive line was controlling the line of scrimmage, the Raiders were able to find space downfield for quarterback Chaz Coleman to connect with his receivers. Coleman finished 10-for-21 for 110 yards, but Harding couldn’t turn those yards into points in the first half, with the exception of one drive at the end of the first quarter where Coleman took advantage of his legs and was able to scramble for some yards. He finished the drive with a five-yard scramble for a touchdown.

“We felt we could take advantage of some things (in the pass game),” Arnold said. “But we didn’t capitalize on hitting some open receivers early on. Then they got their offense going and we ran into a buzzsaw.”

In the second half, Drew McKowan came in at quarterback with the second units for both teams and was able to lead the Raiders on two scoring drives.

On the opening drive of the second half, he connected with Khamari Adams on a goal line fade in the back corner of the end zone for a four-yard score. Then on Harding’s next possession, McKowan hit Naujeat Jones in stride down the sideline for a 57-yard touchdown.

But it didn’t take Ursuline long to pick up where it left off, as backup quarterback Landon Duble found DeShaun Matlock all alone behind the defense on a busted coverage for a 57-yard touchdown to complete the scoring.

As the regular season reaches its midway point, Ursuline remains unbeaten at 5-0, while Harding falls to 1-4.

“This is a game where, and I’m speaking right now directly after the game — this is a game that you throw away, forget about it and regroup,” Arnold said. “We’re back home next week, and it’s going to get better. You just have to try to regroup. For every situation, you try to learn from it and we’re trying to learn from this, but this was humbling.

“We’re at the midpoint of the season. If you had asked me if we would be 1-4 midway through the season, I would’ve told you no, even though we’ve had a difficult schedule. We knew the schedule back in the winter, so we prepared for it. Now we just have to take a deep breath, exhale and say we’ve still got the second half of the season.”