Luke Hendershott was not at all fazed by Friday’s scoreless halftime game.

He’s familiar with this brand of football.

For the fourth time in five weeks, Yorkville found itself in a low-scoring tie game through a half. Like the previous occasions, the Foxes’ defense held the fort down so the game could be won after halftime.

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Yorkville at Oswego Yorkville celebrates their win over Oswego in their football game Friday, Sept 26, 2025 in Oswego. (Gary E Duncan Sr. for Shaw Local)

Yorkville’s defense forced three Oswego second-half turnovers, the first Hendershott’s interception.

The visiting Foxes rode a dominant defensive performance to a 16-6 win over Oswego in a matchup of unbeatens in the Southwest Prairie West, and in the process snapped the Panthers’ 14-game regular-season winning streak.

“We feel like every game is going to be a defensive game,” said Hendershott, a senior linebacker/defensive back. “We’re going to hold teams to the least amount of points. Our offense makes great adjustments and our defense is able to hold it down.”

Jack Beetham threw a touchdown pass and ran in a score and T.J. Harland rushed for 116 yards on 26 carries for Yorkville (5-0, 2-0), which surpassed last year’s win total with the win.

The Foxes, the lone unbeaten left in the SPC West, are off to their best start since 2019, Yorkville’s first in the league.

Hendershott said they’re just getting started.

“The goal from the get-go was 9-0,” he said. “This is a big step in that direction. I think this will be our hardest game.”

Hendershott had the game-turning play on the third series of the second half.

He picked off Drew Kleinhans’ short pass to set up Yorkville at the Oswego 28-yard line. It led to Kyle Nadler’s 30-yard field goal for the game’s first points, with 1:22 left in the third quarter.

“I was just covering my flat, my left end Mark Smith made a great play, made the quarterback force a throw, and he threw it right to me,” Hendershott said. “It felt like a great play, but it’s not happening without the rest of my team.”

Indeed, it was a group effort by the Yorkville defense.

The Foxes held Oswego (4-1, 1-1), the highest-scoring offense in the league through four weeks, to one first down in the first half, six for the game.

“We watched a bunch of film, we watched so much film of them,” Hendershott said. “They were predictable.”

Neither team did much of anything in the first half, with five total first downs. Neither team crossed midfield until Yorkville’s last possession of the half.

“I can’t say enough good things about our defense and the fact that they believed,” Yorkville coach Dan McGuire said. “We didn’t help them at all in the first half. I hate to know what the time of possession was. They threw us on their backs in the first half.”

Yorkville flipped the time of possession in the second half with 29 runs, 18 from Harland, and just two passes.

The first one was a big one. Beetham hit A.J. DiVito in stride for a 57-yard TD down the left sideline for a 9-0 lead with 9:14 left.

“We set it up earlier by throwing a screen pass early in the game,” Beetham said. “We wanted to take a shot. Three-step drop, took a shot.”

Beetham later added a 1-yard TD run set up by Owen Middleton’s fumble recovery on an Oswego attempted hook-and-ladder.

It was that kind of night for the Panthers, who also had a pass picked off by Yorkville’s Caleb Viscogliosi.

Oswego got on the board with Kleinhans’ 30-yard TD pass to Mariano Velasco to make it 16-6 with 4:52 left, but a successful two-point conversion was wiped out by an illegal shift, one of nine Oswego penalties.

Kleinhans was 8 for 18 for 79 yards while Oswego was held to 78 rushing yards.

“Yorkville did a phenomenal job on first and second down. The third downs we had weren’t all that manageable,” Oswego coach Brian Cooney said. “It just wasn’t our night. They played well.

“First time this year we’ve been negative in the turnovers. Make your own luck. We just couldn’t get in a rhythm offensively.”

Beetham was 8-for-13 for 96 yards for Yorkville, a likely playoff team with the win.

“My goal was to make the playoffs and we already are on that fringe of making the playoffs,” Beetham said. “We only believed in ourselves. ”I don’t think anybody had Yorkville winning our first five. Proving everybody wrong is motivation to keep going."