The 2011 home opener for International Falls’ football team at Sports Stadium got off to a good start Friday night against Virginia, but the second half turned out to be a completely different story.

The Broncos scored first and remained in front at halftime, 8-6. Falls got its one and only touchdown of the evening in the second quarter when junior running back Nick Janttie found open room along the Broncos’ sideline and ran 44 yards to paydirt.

But the Broncos had trouble containing Blue Devils junior quarterback Cade Stackpool, who rushed for three touchdowns and passed for another, as Virginia scored five unanswered touchdowns to win, 34-8.

Falls head coach Jay Boyle said the Broncos started out well against Virginia and improved from the opening week’s 49-0 shutout at Foley, but still aren’t “recovering from the other team’s big plays as much as we need to.”

“It was much better than we did against Foley, but we’ve still got steps to take,” Boyle said.

Stackpool got the Blue Devils on the scoreboard on a two-yard run with about a minute left before halftime.

The proverbial injury bug started to bite the Broncos in the second half. A key injury occurred with 8:10 left in the third quarter when offensive end and linebacker Josh Potter, who is also Falls’ punter, left the game.

Stackpool then gave the Blue Devils the lead for good when he scrambled for touchdown runs of 36 and 35 yards as Virginia led 20-8 going into the final quarter.

“We had everything shut down except for their quarterback scramble,” Boyle said. “The plays they scored on, at least until the very end, were plays where their quarterback just made a play. We knew he was their best athlete on the field.”

Aided by Stackpool’s scrambling, Virginia rushed for 215 of its 252 total yards, compared to 67 rushing yards of the 157-yard total for the Falls. Aside from Janttie’s touchdown, the Broncos were only able to gain 23 net yards rushing on non-scoring plays.

Falls junior quarterback Gunnar Anderson completed 11 of 22 passes for 90 yards and had one interception.

The Broncos also lost two fumbles, while Virginia only had one turnover on an interception.

“Turnovers will kill you, and it’s something we’re going to have to improve upon to be a good football team,” Boyle said.

He said he expects the Broncos will be back to full strength with the players sustaining injuries against Virginia returning to action this Friday at Sea-Range Conference foe Proctor, which is also 0-2 for the season.

Boyle said he hopes the Broncos will learn from the game against the Blue Devils to prepare for the Rails.

“Our attitude was a step in the right direction — that’s pretty much our big thing,” he said. “As long as we show up and play football, we can play with most of the teams in our conference.”

Virginia 34, I. Falls 8

V 0 6 14 14 — 34

IF 0 8 0 0 — 8

Scoring:

IF — Nick Janttie 44 run (Josh Potter pass from Gunnar Anderson)

V — Cade Stackpool 2 run (pass failed)

V — Stackpool 36 run (run failed)

V — Stackpool 35 run (Stackpool run)

V — Marc Krebsbach 5 pass from Stackpool (Krebsbach run)

V — Mitch Sella 42 run (run failed)