Sullivan’s Defense Damages DeSoto
The Sullivan Eagles surged past the De Soto Dragons during their first road game of the football season. The Eagles came alive in the first quarter and didn’t look back. This was the second game in a row that Sullivan scored more than thirty points in the game. They look to keep the same momentum all season.
“In spurts, we were great. Then we had a couple of penalties that kind of hurt us a little bit, gave them more opportunities; that’s just something we have to work on in practice,” said Head Coach Eddie Haar about the victory last week against Northwest. The Eagles worked on not allowing those penalties and improved this week at De Soto, not giving up a single one during the game. Sullivan shut out the Dragons, 38-0.
In the first quarter, Sullivan started the game by receiving the ball in the opening kickoff. They were at third and ten when Gabe Dace fired a missile to his brother, Gavin Dace, and the Eagles got a first down. They capitalized, and Franky Erxleben started his spectacular night with a first down run and a touchdown to follow. After a successful two point conversion, the score was 8-0 with a little less than nine and a half minutes left in the quarter. Sullivan’s defense shined against De Soto. Colton Brendel stopped the Dragons for a big loss of yards, and De Soto was clearly shaken up as they gave up an interception to Erxleben. Gabe Dace threw a bullet pass to Erxleben and Sullivan found the endzone again. After another successful two point conversion, Sullivan had scored 16 unanswered points. Sullivan’s defense made it to where De Soto didn’t have the ball very long before they had to kick it away. The Dragons had a good moment defensively and intercepted the ball from Sullivan. The Eagles used that as motivation with Gavin Dace hitting the Dragons so hard that they fumbled the football. Sam Summers scooped up the lost rock and ran it into the endzone to score again with a little under four and a half minutes left in the first. Gavin Dace and the rest of the Sullivan defense kept dominating De Soto.
In the second quarter, De Soto’s defense began to come alive and even sacked Gabe Dace and brought Sullivan to a second and sixteen. Coach Haar took a timeout and stopped the clock with 9:08 left in the first half. Sullivan picked up the first down and Erxleben kept up the strong running game. Gabe Dace added to that strong running game when he kept the ball and kept running even after contact. He rushed for 27 yards and secured another touchdown for Sullivan. After the two point conversion was successful, the score was 28-0 with less than seven and half minutes left. Sullivan’s defense is what won the game, Brendel sacking the De Soto quarterback to add to the in-progress shut out. The Eagles continued the big show when Gabe Dace found Jonathon Martin in the endzone to make the score 36-0 to end the first half.
In the final half, the clock was running because of the points difference. Coach Haar made some substitutions, and he put in Dayton Skaggs who made a big 17 yard run. He made another run to add to Sullivan’s score. The defense of Sullivan continued to dominate when the football was snapped over the Dragon’s quarterback’s head and Gavin Dace picked up the loose ball for a safety. Robert York took over for Gabe Dace as quarterback and they handed the ball a few times to Ben Goly and Skaggs to give the normal starters a break. The final score was 38-0.
“What I was most excited about was our varsity kids and older kids coaching them up and getting excited to play,” said Coach Haar about the victory. “That was really cool, that was a great thing to see. That’s growing as a team right there.”
Sullivan finished the game with 233 rushing yards and 113 receiving yards. Gabe Dace tallied 125 passing yards. Sullivan’s defense shined and held De Soto at 19 rushing yards.
“We’ve got Union, our first conference game, big conference game,” Haar said about their next game. “We gotta start preparing for that right now. They had a last second win versus Washington. We’re going up there on the road again, so it’s gonna be an exciting game and our kids are excited for it. Make the best adjustments we can and see what happens.”