Burlington Central‘s 42-7 win at McHenry Friday night might show the exact DNA of this Rockets football team.

Dominate with defense and rise to the occasion in the crucial moments.

The Rockets held McHenry to just 18 yards of offense in the first half and came up with two huge momentum swings to move to 5-1 overall and 5-1 in the Fox Valley Conference.

The first of those momentum swings – quite possible the biggest moment of the game – came midway through the second quarter. Trailing just 14-0, McHenry’s James Butler came up with a blocked punt that set up McHenry (2-4, 2-4) with first-and-goal from Centrals’ 8.

However, after two plays for just two yards, the Rockets defense forced a scrambling QB Jeffry Schwab into a fumble far behind the line of scrimmage. While the Warriors recovered, it forced a long 45-yard field goal attempt that was missed.

That defensive stuff helped produce a huge scoring swing as Burlington Central then went 72 yards on 14 plays, the last being a 4-yard touchdown pass from Landon Arnold to Gavin Bergemann to make it 21-0 at halftime.

“That’s kind of one of the identities of this team that we’re becoming right now,” Central coach Brian Iossi said. “There’s no quit in them, and even when we give up a score, we’re bouncing right back and going down and scoring again. We’ve kind of done that all year.”

The second big moment came following McHenry’s most explosive moment of the game. An impressive 47-yard scramble by Schwab set up a 1-yard scoring run to make it 21-7 early in the third quarter. However, just two plays later, Arnold made an even more impressive 87-yard designed run during in which he changed directions twice to steal back the momentum at 28-7.

It was Arnold’s third score in a huge game for the quarterback. He rushed for 155 yards while completing 11 of 17 passes for 100 yards and two scores.

“That was the most tired I’ve ever been. It was so much fun,” a smiling Arnold said. “Even pre-snap I knew I could get a good amount of yards, though maybe not that much. I had one great stiff arm, and I had Christian (Livingston) on the side of me make a great block. I couldn’t have made it without him, so thank God for Christian, my whole team and the O-line. You can’t do it without the O line.”

Livingston also caught the first Arnold touchdown pass of the game while Parker Auxier popped a 51-yard touchdown run on his way to 84 yards in the game. Bergemann added a 5-yard touchdown run, and kicker Maximillian Gemelli got into the fun by scoring from 8 yards out on a fake field goal.

For McHenry, Schwab finished with 70 yards rushing in addition to 6-of-14 passing for 60 yards. One pass was intercepted by Burlington Central’s Liam Schultz.

“For us, we have to be able to execute in those critical moments,” McHenry coach Colt Nero said. “We’ve asked these kids to do a lot this year. They’ve come a really long way in what they’ve done. I couldn’t be more proud with how they have competed this entire season, and I know tonight obviously stings for them, but there’s so much confidence in this group still. We’re going to move on to next week, and we’re going to make sure we put our best foot forward and are ready to go.”