Great teams are never satisfied.

So despite a 42-point victory in its opener, Tamaqua knew there was still plenty of room for improvement.

One of those areas was the running game.

After a 50-0 victory over Mahanoy Area on Friday night, it appears that concern has been addressed.

The Blue Raiders (2-0) raced up and down the field against the Golden Bears, piling up 309 rushing yards on just 18 carries — an average of over 17 yards per carry.

“We definitely emphasized our running game this week in practice,” said Tamaqua coach Sam Bonner. “We made a lot of mistakes up front against Line Mountain. Most of those mistakes were mental ones, not physical ones, and they came running a lot of our basic plays that shouldn’t have produced those kinds of problems.

“We wanted to get that corrected tonight, and I think we did a nice job of doing that.”

Raider running back Nate Boyle, who was held to just 44 yards a week ago, exploded for 151 yards on just six carries against Mahanoy Area. He also scored a pair of touchdowns.

“It was important to get our running game going tonight and that’s something our coaches stressed all week,” said Boyle. “We have a lot of weapons so not being able to run the ball didn’t hurt us last week because Brayden (Knoblauch) and Matt (Kistler) had big games.

“But we knew we needed to step it up and not have to rely solely on our pass offense every week, We have a great line and tonight they opened some really nice holes for myself and the rest of our backs to run through.”

While the Tamaqua run game was making up for last week, the Raiders’ passing attack was picking up right where it left off.

Quarterback Knoblauch and wide receiver Kistler, who both set single-game school records a week ago, combined for passing touchdowns of 20 and 50 yards on the Raiders’ first two possessions to make it 14-0 early in the second quarter.

A 10-yard run by Boyle and a 10-yard Knoblauch to Pierce Demetriades TD pass made it 28-0 at halftime.

Despite that seemingly comfortable start, Tamaqua was on its heels most of the opening quarter as Mahanoy (0-2) took the kickoff and chewed nearly eight minutes off the clock, reaching the Raiders’ 3-yard-line before a pair of negative yardage plays ended the drive.

“I thought we ran the ball effectively tonight,” said Mahanoy Area coach Dave Holman about his team’s 217 yards on the ground. “We wanted to play defense by controlling the ball with our offense and we did that in the first half.

“Unfortunately for us, you have to be able to cash it in when you have chances and we couldn’t do that. We were in the red zone three or four times and didn’t get any points. Against a team with as many weapons as Tamaqua has, you need to score because they are going to get their points.”

Bonner pointed to the Raiders’ defensive effort when the Bears threatened on the opening drive as being a key moment in the game.

“I thought that was really big as far as momentum was concerned,” said Bonner. “They run that midline option offense that Navy has run for years and that’s hard to duplicate with your practice squad.

“So I think it took us a little while to adjust to it. But being able to make those big stops when they got down close was huge.”

Tamaqua continued its onslaught in the second half as a 62-yard touchdown run by Boyle kicked the game into the mercy rule with 11:03 left in the third quarter.

Tamaqua reserves Jake Barron and Nick Bolletino added fourth quarter TDs.

PERFECT GAME ... Being a baseball pitcher as well as a quarterback means Knoblauch knows something about perfect games — just probably not on the football field. But that’s exactly what he had passing the ball as he went 9-for-9 for 160 yards and three touchdowns.

MEANINGLESS STAT OF THE NIGHT ... Most football experts will tell you time of possession is one of the game’s most overrated statistics. Last night’s game proved that point as Mahanoy Area had the ball for 19:19 in the first half and Tamaqua had the ball for 4:41, but the Blue Raiders led 28-0 at the break. That’s because Tamaqua’s first four possessions produced 28 points on just 10 offensive plays.

BIG PLAY THREAT ... With 102 yards receiving and two touchdowns on just three catches last night, Kistler now has 10 receptions for 294 yards and five touchdowns on the season ­— an incredible 29.4 yards per catch average.