Landon Knigge sure gave his mom a nice birthday present Friday night.

The Dixon senior rushed for 205 yards and four touchdowns in the Dukes’ 55-0 victory over Stillman Valley on Homecoming at A.C. Bowers Field.

Needing 39 yards on his 15th and final carry to reach 200 for the night, Knigge broke off a 44-yard run to the Stillman 10-yard line before Owen Belzer took the next handoff into the end zone for a 49-0 lead.

“Jagger [Kemp] came into the huddle and he said, ‘Last play for us, it’s a give no matter what; I’m not even reading it.’ And I said, ‘All right, we’re running it, let’s go!’ said Knigge, who also caught three passes for 18 yards. “Our coaches did a good job mixing it up, and that was a great game by Jagger. He had a couple of crazy passes that looked a little iffy at first, but he executed all game long. That’s all that matters.”

Dixon finished with 29 rushes for 288 yards and seven TDs, and Kemp completed 11 of his 13 passes for 120 yards, including a 23-yard scoring pass to Jake Zepezauer – on a diving catch after Kemp heaved it into the end zone – with 13 seconds left in the first half.

Kemp, who also ran for a 14-yard touchdown among his five rushes for 29 yards, connected with four different receivers. Logan Mershon led the way with 57 yards on four catches, Zepezauer had three for 32 yards, and Jackson Koehler caught a 13-yard pass.

“It felt great to keep the defense on their toes,” Kemp said of the Dukes’ passing game. “It seems unexpected; they know we’re going to give LJ [Knigge] the rock, but we’re always ready to do our thing on offense and throw the ball.”

On the other side of the ball, Dixon (5-1, 5-1 Big Northern) pitched its fourth straight shutout; in fact, other than a three-TD performance by Byron in Week 2 (the Tigers’ fourth score was on a fumble return), the Dukes have given up just one touchdown in their other five games combined.

“Our plan going into every game is to have zero points up on the board on the other side. Ever since that Byron loss, we made a goal that we don’t want to get scored on the rest of the season,” linebacker Brady Lawrence said. “Four straight shutouts, it hasn’t happened since the 1950s, and that’s a huge thing to us. Our defense has worked every day to push ourselves, push each other to be our best, and we just look to play the best we can every game.”

Stillman Valley (3-3, 3-2 BNC) ran 30 times for 39 yards and lost two fumbles. The Cardinals completed their only pass for 10 yards to set up one of their two first downs in the game.

It’s the third time in the last four games the Dukes have allowed fewer than 50 yards of total offense; in fact, they’ve given up a total of 178 yards combined in the last four games.

As good as the offense has been, it’s the defense setting the tone from the start, usually taking the field right away after kicking off to open the game.

“For us personally [on offense], we want to have the defense out there first,” Kemp said. “We want to set the tone, we want to hit them, and then we want to go out on offense and score. It’s both sides of the ball, get out fast and then keep it going.”

“We like being out there first, setting the tone real quick, being physical and getting off the ball fast from that first play,” Lawrence added.

Dixon scored on its first seven possessions, with two of the TDs set up by fumble recoveries by Brenden Kastner and Blaine Eberhardt. Knigge had touchdown runs of 18, 31, 4 and 21 yards, and Dylan Conderman capped the scoring with a 35-yard scoring sprint on the Dukes’ ninth possession.

The Dukes averaged 9.7 yards per play (408 total yards on 42 plays), while allowing just 1.6 yards per play (49 yards on 31 plays) for Stillman Valley.