Defenses shine as Rockford Lutheran outlasts Dixon in rainy battle

ROCKFORD – Dixon had a few drives, and was able to get a short field to set up others. Rockford Lutheran had one solid drive.

But while the Crusaders cashed in on their one quality chance, the Dukes could not, and Lutheran came away with a 7-2 win on Saturday.

Lutheran scored on its opening drive, then held off the Dukes, who at one point in the fourth quarter had the ball at the Crusaders’ 1.

A blocked punt, the Dukes’ second of the game, was recovered by Mason Randick at the Lutheran 19 with 8:06 to play in the game.

After Dixon quarterback Jacob Gaither took the ball on an option and got as close as the 1, the Crusaders came up with a goal-line stand, stopping a pair of plunges up the middle on first and second down before Joshua Oetting deflected a pass intended for Randick on third-and-goal.

On fourth down, Gaither tried to take it himself up the middle, but was again stopped short.

“That’s a huge stop,” Lutheran coach Tony Ambrogio said. “They just followed their keys and did what they’d been taught in practice all week, and they made the play.”

Rockford Lutheran failed to move the ball on the ensuing drive. With Dixon having already blocked two punts in the game and with another in that situation possibly meaning seven points for the Dukes, Oetting deliberately took a safety on fourth-and-10 at the 1 as Dixon’s Quinn Staples was bearing down on him.

Dixon’s drive after the free kick started at the Lutheran 48, but went backward with Gaither sacked on second down, making up the yardage he lost and more with an eight-yard scramble on third-and-17, then being sacked again on fourth down by Liam Keller.

The Dukes had one last-gasp chance with the ball at their own 22 with 18.7 seconds left, but after Gaither scrambled for six yards on first down, Lutheran was able to break up a pair of pass attempts on the final two plays.

“We just kept grinding,” Ambrogio said. “We know they want to pass the ball and be electric and use their skill guys, so we thought on our side if that’s what they want to do, we’ll let them. As long as we kept them behind the sticks on offense, we felt they were in a place to have to make a long pass on third down.”

Dixon also failed to cash in on quality field position in the first half. A blocked punt late in the first quarter gave the Dukes the ball at the Lutheran 27. Gaither went for a potential score on the first play, but his pass to Cal Kyker near the goal line glanced off Kyker’s fingertips.

A rushing attempt went backward, a penalty pushed the Dukes further back, and Dixon ended up turning the ball over on downs at the Lutheran 35.

The Dukes also had a second-quarter drive start near midfield before a fumble, a third-quarter drive start near midfield and reach the Crusaders’ 29 before a turnover on downs, and another third-quarter drive start near midfield but end in a three-and-out.

When Dixon’s offense was moving, it was largely by way of Gaither’s running ability. The former wide receiver-turned-quarterback used a mix of option plays and scrambles. He gained 56 yards on the ground.

“We had some success last week with it,” Dixon coach Jared Shaner said. “We had a couple we got him through. Their linebackers were extremely aggressive shooting gaps, and we didn’t get it picked up a few times.”

But while the offense had trouble getting moving, Dixon’s defense kept the Dukes in striking distance until the very end.

Lutheran scored on its opening drive, a six-play, 51-yard march set up when Tag Habedank initially muffed the opening kickoff, but then recovered and raced 39 yards to get the ball near midfield. A mix of his runs and Oetting finding him in the passing game took the ball the rest of the way, with Habedank scoring on a 14-yard run with 9:42 left in the first.

“We were fresh. The line was blocking well,” Oetting said. “We were hitting, no rain, the ball was nice and dry.”

But while the rain held off for Lutheran’s first drive, it – and Dixon’s defense – showed up after that.

Oetting provided a bit of a spark with a fake punt on the next drive, but that drive eventually stalled out when Justin Dallas sacked Oetting on third down and the Crusaders punted.

A slew of penalties helped slow the Lutheran offense the rest of the first half. The Crusaders were flagged 13 times for 95 yards in the first half alone, then drew an unsportsmanlike conduct flag on the second-half kickoff and put up 144 yards of total offense.

Oetting completed his first four passes, compiling quick yards through the air, but that started to slow as he completed just one of his next six, with the Dukes’ defensive line starting to get more pressure on him and the secondary was able to knock away a few passes. Jaylen Carr intercepted a Hail Mary into the end zone as time ran out in the second quarter.

“I’m very proud of the effort, especially defensively,” Shaner said. “We have guys that are really banged up right now, we had three guys we weren’t sure would play and we went through warmups and all three wanted to play. That says something about them, about the type of kids they are. Other than that first drive, our defense was solid. I thought our kids played really hard.”

It was a lockdown day for both defenses. The teams tallied a combined 14 first downs and went 2-for-30 on third-down attempts. Lutheran held Dixon to 96 yards of total offense.