Riley McCarron had two jobs for Dubuque Wahlert's football team Friday night against Washington.

McCarron had to direct Wahlert's offense at quarterback and shut down record-setting Washington wide receiver Flynn Heald on defense.

Check and check.

McCarron threw four touchdown passes and intercepted two passes to lead Wahlert past the Warriors, 31-10, in a Mississippi Valley Conference game at Kingston Stadium.

The loss was the second straight for Washington (2-2) after winning its first two to open the season.

The score was tied at 10-10 at halftime.

Wahlert (3-1) took the second half kickoff and went 62 yards in 47 seconds to take a lead it did not surrender. McCarron tossed an 11-yard touchdown pass to senior Nate Pierotti for the go-ahead score with 11:13 to play in the third quarter.

It was the second touchdown pass of the night for McCarron who fired scoring passes of 55, 8 and 29 yards to senior Brady Williams. The first came in the first half. The 8-yard scoring pass gave the Golden Eagles a two-score cushion at 24-10 with 2:48 left in the third quarter. The 29-yard pass play all but sealed the win with 6:42 to play.

"That first drive was huge," McCarron said. "The confidence level was sky-high and we just put our foot on the gas."

McCarron, who rushed for 1,058 yards a year ago as a tailback, talked Wahlert Coach Mike Mahoney into giving him a shot at quarterback before the season started.

"We didn't have a quarterback coming back, so I said I'll give it a try," said McCarron a strong-armed shortstop being recruited to play baseball by Iowa, Indiana State and Division II power Winona State.

"As a staff we were like, 'What do we do? We got a 1,000-yard rusher in the backfield,' " Mahoney said. "But you have to put your best athlete in a spot where he's going to touch the ball and Riley is our best athlete by far. Everybody knows that. He's special when he's back there. He can do a lot of things that make us look good."

McCarron's elusiveness proved deadly to the Warriors. Several times he rolled out to one side of the field, eluded the Warrior rush and cut back clear across field before finding open receivers. He completed 11 of 20 passes for 260 yards, including strikes of 44, 37 and 22 yards on non-scoring plays. He also ran 11 times for 75 yards.

"The receivers know that Riley's going to keep plays alive, so they just have to keep running routes and keep trying to get open," Mahoney said.

Washington Coach Tony Lombardi said McCarron caused huge problems for his defense.

"We allowed their quarterback to break contain all game long, even though we knew that was something we had to effect," he said. "We're not a very good football team right now."

While the Warriors could not contain McCarron on offense, the Golden Eagles' senior did a fairly good job at cornerback of bottling up Heald, who caught 21 passes last week against Kennedy. Heald caught five passes for 55 yards against Wahlert and was continually bumped at the line of scrimmage and knocked off his routes.

"Riley's our best athlete, so we just put him over the top of No. 2 (Heald)," Mahoney said. "We were going to take our chances, our best guy against theirs. And Riley played a great game on defense, too."

The result was a terrible night for Washington senior quarterback Braedon Tovey, who was pressured into throwing four interceptions. After passing for 304 yards a week ago, Tovey was 8-of-20 for 111 yards against Wahlert.

"I just think we threw them right to them," Lombardi said of the interceptions. "It's not hard to intercept the ball when somebody throws them right into your chest."

Wahlert played with an intensity that came from a lesson learned a week ago when the Golden Eagles held a 16-14 halftime lead against Linn-Mar and got thrashed, 54-22.

"We went through a second half where we really played as bad as we could," Mahoney said of the loss to Linn-Mar. "This game, we knew if we could keep it close, we thought our learning experience was a big advantage for us."

Now it's time for Washington to learn from its mistakes, Lombardi said.

"We didn't play very well," he said. "I felt like our kids gave effort, but we have to go back and maybe re-evaluate some personnel and some things. We have to see if we have kids in the right places. We have to look at where we are and see where they want to go to and see what happens.

"I've been doing this a long time and I know this: The kids will get out of this what they put into it. We're going to find out this week what we're made of. We'll see."

Washington plays at Dubuque Senior (1-3) next Friday. Wahlert hosts Hempstead (0-4).

WAHLERT 31, WASHINGTON 10

Wahlert            0    10    14   7   -      31
Washington       7     3     0    0   -      10

CRW - David Tann 13 interception return (Michael Daughtery kick)
DW - Brady Williams 55 pass from Riley McCarron (Sam Koenig kick)
CRW - FG Daughtery 33
DW - FG Koenig 36
DW - Nate Pierotti 11 pass from McCarron (Koenig kick)
DW - Williams 8 pass from McCarron (Koenig kick)
DW - Williams 29 pass from McCarron (Koenig kick)

Team Stats

First downs -- DW 18, CRW 17

Rushes yards -- DW 40-177, CRW 37-178

Receiving yards -- DW 260, CRW 111

Comp-Att-Int -- DW 11-20-1, CRW 8-20-4

Punts-avg. -- DW 1-33, CRW 5-38.8

Fumbles-lost -- DW 0-0, CRW 0-0

Penalties-yards -- DW 9-65, CRW 6-53

Individual Stats

Rushing -- DW: Riley McCarron 11-75, Sam Koenig 20-70, Jake Decker 6-19, John Burgmeier 3-13. CRW: Mitch Bredeson 20-78, David Tann 7-51, Braedon Tovey 10-49.

Passing -- DW: McCarron 11-20-1-260. CRW: Tovey 8-20-4-111.

Receiving -- DW: Brady Williams 5-151, John Burgmeier 3-17, Josh Tranel 1-44, Nick Nemmers 1-37, Nate Pierotti 1-11. CRW: Flynn Heald 5-55, Jason Oney 1-32, Tann 1-13, Mitch Blades 1-11.

Sophomore score - Wahlert 35, Washington 14