Landon Knigge just loves contact. Whether he’s got the ball on offense or an opposing ballcarrier has it when he’s on defense, the Dixon senior just loves to hear and feel the pads popping.

Usually he’s the one delivering the blow instead of absorbing it, and he did more of the same Friday night in the Dukes’ Class 4A first-round playoff game against Woodstock North.

Knigge surpassed the 2,000-yard mark for the season with another huge effort in Dixon’s 45-0 win over the Thunder at A.C. Bowers Field.

“They’re tackling pretty good out there,” he was overheard saying at halftime about the Woodstock North defense. “I love that. It makes it fun.”

A week after setting a school record with 447 yards, the reigning Friday Night Drive Team of the Week MVP ran 30 times for 238 yards and three touchdowns, putting him at 2,083 yards for the season. It’s the second-best single-season rushing mark in school history, and he’s just 32 yards shy of the single-season school record of 2,115 yards set by Arthur Cox in 2017. Cox also ran for 2,069 yards in 2016; those are the only three 2,000-yard seasons in program history.

It took Knigge a few carries to get going in this one, but once the Dukes got rolling, things ran smoothly.

“It’s the playoffs, so we had to get in the swing of things, get back into the mindset of ‘Hey, it’s football, let’s turn it up,’” Knigge said. “The O-line was doing great the whole time, we just had to flow into it.”

Dixon (9-1) punted on its first series, but Owen Belzer intercepted a pass three plays later. When quarterback Jagger Kemp pulled the ball on a read option for a 21-yard touchdown run, that seemed to light the candle.

The Dukes scored touchdowns on their next three series to take a 28-0 lead into halftime. Knigge had scoring runs of 4 yards and 1 yard, and Kemp added another from 13 yards out.

“Jagger had some good runs too, and that’s exactly how our offense is with that read,” said Knigge, who added a 1-yard TD run on his final carry. “You’ve got to read the field, and it’s either a give or a pull or a toss to the outside, and I love it when we can work it like that.”

“Whatever they do is wrong, that’s what we say, because we have a plan with whatever read we see,” added Kemp, who ran for 64 yards and passed for 71. “It feels great to keep that balance and keep scoring.”

Dixon also recovered a pair of fumbles, while Woodstock North (6-4) recovered three other fumbles to avoid turnovers.

The Dukes defense was stingy, allowing just 62 total yards and two first downs on 34 plays. Both Thunder first downs came on the same third-quarter drive after Caleb Carlson’s 24-yard field goal put Dixon up 31-0 midway through the period.

“Our defense constantly sets the tone, makes plays every single game,” Belzer said. “We come out and kick the other team in the teeth and show them it’s going to be hard moving the ball on us.

“And forcing turnovers, the more opportunities our offense has to get on the field, the better. It’s awesome to be able to give our offense the chance to make the scoreboard look like that at the end of the night.”

Kemp was 8 of 10 through the air and connected on passes to five different receivers, including a 21-yard touchdown pass to Logan Mershon to make it 45-0 one play after Blaine Eberhardt recovered a fumble.

In 11 possessions, Dixon scored six touchdowns and kicked a field goal while punting just twice. It also lost a fumble at the goal line and kneeled out the clock at the end.

“Obviously there’s going to be ups and downs, but we know the defense is always going to hold their ground and get us the ball so we can do our thing and go score,” Kemp said. “It feels good when we can get out there and just start rolling, get in a flow state like that.”

The Thunder had six series go three-and-out, one end at the halftime horn, and a turnover on downs on their only drive inside the Dixon 45-yard line; that drive ended at the Dukes’ 29.

“Shooting ourselves in the foot, that doesn’t help against a good football team,” Woodstock North coach Jeremiah Homuth said. “And for us defensively, they didn’t show us anything we didn’t prepare for all week. They out-executed us when they got their opportunities, and there’s nothing we can scheme for when that happens. Just not getting off blocks and making tackles. We’ve done a great job all year stopping the run, so we felt really good coming into this game, but we made too many mistakes to beat a good football team.”