Linden High School holds on to their undefeated record after Friday’s game against the Fruitdale Pirates with a score of 67-6.

It seemed after starting with a field position to their advantage, there was no looking back for the Patriots.

Senior Marquise Shelton lead the Patriots scoring with four touchdowns for the night. Shelton’s longest was on a 22-yard run to put points on the board for the Patriots with 2:49 left in the first quarter.

The score may have looked a lot different for the Patriots despite some struggles with penalties for the night resulting in 2 touchdowns called back both by Shelton for 65 and 22-yards, respectively.

“We are working to continue to get better every week, we have to work on the small things to keep getting better,” Linden Head Coach Andro Williams said.

Fruitdale struggled to get things going offensively allowing Linden to take a big lead at the half with a score of 35-0.

Linden’s momentum didn’t stop at the half, Jalen Lewis wasted no time adding points to the Patriots score on a athletic 54-yard run leaving 10:37 left in the third.

Fruitdale couldn’t do much on their next drive forcing them to punt into the hands of Linden’s Anthony Robinson, Jr. setting him up for a 65-yard punt return to grant Linden a 48-0 lead.

Another Linden score would then give them 55 points over Fruitdale.

While it looked as though Fruitdale was going to get into the endzone for the first time of the night, two sacks by Linden defenders halted a score.

Linden took over the ball and Fruitdale forced a fumble. The Pirates capitalized on the mistake with a 6-yard run making it 55-6 with about 2 minutes left in the third quarter.

The fourth quarter breezed by for the two teams, however Linden still managed to add 12 more points to the score bringing the contest to a final of 67-6.

“We had a couple injuries this game, we are going to work on getting the kids healthy heading into the playoffs,” Williams said.

Linden goes on to play Southern Choctaw next week before heading into the playoffs.