BROOKVILLE — Big plays and nearly 300 rushing yards carried the day for the St. Marys Flying Dutchmen, who notched their first football win of the early season at Brookville Friday night.

The Dutch came real close to having two 100-yard rushers as Andrew Field went for 157 yards on 29 carries and a touchdown and Landon Cook gained 99 yards on 13 carries with two TDs as the Dutch pulled away in the second half for a 24-14 victory.

St. Marys trailed 14-6 at halftime, but scored 18 unanswered points in the second half, bottling up the Raiders and limiting them to just 33 yards on 15 plays with just one first down. The Dutch also forced four Raiders turnovers, cashing on two of them for 12 points.

Head coach Chris Dworek, the Raiders’ all-time winningest coach in his 19 seasons in Brookville, improved to 3-3 against his former team. More important was that the Dutch improved to 1-2.

“I’m happy because these guys have been working hard for four weeks, really. I’m happy for them,” said Dworek, who confirmed he was walking from field to his home still nearby. “Their attitudes are good … so it’s nice to get a reward like that because that’s why they work so hard.”

The Raiders, who fell to 0-3, played their best half of the season to start the night, but turnovers, missed opportunities and the Dutch’s offense kept any momentum going in the second half.

They limited the Dutch to zero or negative yards on 19 plays totaling minus-65 yards with five sacks. Junior linebacker Chase Nimmo had a big night with three of those sacks.

But the Dutch pulled out six plays going 20 or more yards totaling 221 yards along with the four turnovers that cost the Raiders dearly, considering two came on first downs in St. Marys territory.

“We did a lot of good things, but the big thing is that you can’t turn the ball over four times and expect to win,” said Raiders head coach Bill Morrison, whose team hosts Brockway Friday. “It’s just not a formula for winning and whenever you do that — our defense did a good job of responding to it more often than not. In the second half, give St. Marys credit, they hit the well and knew what was working and stayed in the well.”

The Raiders started the game with a drive to the Dutch 23 that stalled on downs. But they forced the Dutch to punt on a three-and-out possession and needed just one play to go up 7-0 when quarterback Trenton Colgan hit Hayden Freeman with a quick out pass and Freeman did the rest for a 47-yard TD connection at the 2:19 mark of the first quarter.

Cook’s first TD from one yard out six plays after the Dutch recovered a fumble at their own 49 cut the score to 7-6 at the 10:06 mark of the second quarter.

The Raiders went up 14-6 with a 42-yard drive that took eight plays to find the end zone. Colgan’s 16-yard pass was hauled in by Sam Krug who made a brilliant finger-tip leaping grab at the 4:01 mark of the second quarter.

But from there, the Raiders managed just one first down the rest of the game and the Dutch managed to get their running game going after halftime.

“We just made a couple (defensive) changes this week and Coach Heschke did a good getting it installed in time and credit to the players,” Morrison said. “They came out guns blazing and we just did it for 24 minutes, or maybe 36, but we didn’t do it for 48 and that’s something we have to work on and we’ll continue to do that.”

St. Marys started the second half with minus-18 yards on three plays and punted away to the Raiders, who got a 16-yard punt return from Parker Kalgren to the Dutch 29. It appeared that it was the Raiders who were poised to take control of the game already up 14-6.

However, it was Frankie Smith intercepting a Trenton Colgan overthrown pass in the end zone on the first Raiders’ play from scrimmage. Eight plays and 80 yards later, Field raced in for a 25-yard touchdown. A failed two-point conversion got the Dutch with 14-12 at the 5:22 mark of the third quarter.

That drive set the tone for the rest of the game. Field and Cook took advantage of some room to run.

“We always have a plan, but you have to be flexible, so when we saw what they were doing with our pass game, we didn’t have enough guys to block,” Dworek said. “So the linemen knew they could do do the job, even though they’re blitzing a lot, and our running backs are tough, so we just stuck with what was working and we were patient with what was working.”

After forcing a second straight three-and-out Raiders possession, the Dutch took the lead for good, needing just two plays to go up 18-14. Field’s 73-yard run to the Raiders’ 17 set up Cook’s 17-yard TD and another failed two-point conversion gave the Dutch a four-point lead with 14.9 seconds left on the third-quarter clock.

Then the Dutch put the game away, forcing a third straight three-and-out Raiders possession and going 83 yards on a massive 15-play drive. On the Dutch’s second fourth-down conversion of the drive, quarterback Brody Wehler hit Matthew Gilmore on a 13-yard TD pass to set the final with three minutes to play.

It was the Dutch’s third pass attempt of the game — Wehler was sacked five times — after throwing 29 times in last week’s loss to the Rovers.

“(Gilmore) called the play,” Dworek said. “He said, ‘Coach, I can beat him on the inside and the linemen said they could block for the quarterback and he took a short drop in case they did blitz and he roped it into the seam. That’s an example of doing what they said and they called their play and number and it worked.”

NOTES: St. Marys hosts Ridgway Friday. … The Dutch outgained the Raiders, 302-201, with Raiders quarterback Colgan completing 11 of 22 passes for 128 yards with the two TDs and one interception. Parker Kalgren completed a fourth-down 25-yard pass to Blake Porter out of a punt formation on the Raiders’ second scoring drive. Colgan led the Raiders with 48 yards on six attempts. Freeman caught three passes for 63 yards while Krug grabbed four balls for 25 yards.