Early turnovers doom Mendota in loss to Kewanee

KEWANEE — The Mendota football team forced a punt on Kewanee’s opening drive of their Three Rivers Conference East Division showdown Friday.

Not much went right for the Trojans after that.

Mendota’s first seven drives ended with back-to-back interceptions, a failed fake punt, an interception returned for a touchdown, a fumble and consecutive punts, which all led to Boilermaker touchdowns en route to a 56-7 loss.

“We were looking forward to a big game, but we didn’t execute in the first couple key moments and they took it to us,” Mendota coach Keegan Hill said. “They played harder than us, they coached better than us and it showed on the scoreboard.”

Mendota quarterback Ted Landgraf had his first three passes of the night intercepted, which led to a 36-yard TD run by Kewanee QB Will Bruno, a 33-yard scoring run by Keyontiss Patterson and a pick six by Niko Powe.

In between the second and third interceptions, Mendota’s Omar Gonzalez was stopped a yard short of a first down on a fake punt, and the Boilermakers (7-0, 5-0 TRC East) converted the short field into an 11-yard TD pass from Bruno to Jordan Johnson.

After a Mendota fumble, Bruno hit Nate Lockett for a 6-yard score, and Kewanee added a 68-yard TD from Bruno to Powe and a 6-yard TD run by 6-foot, 300-pound lineman James Conner to take a 49-0 halftime lead.

“It put us in some short fields and put our defense in some tough spots,” Hill said about the turnovers. “We need to do better executing in those situations.”

Bruno finished 4-of-6 for 98 yards and three TDs while running for 45 yards and a score. Patterson rushed for 145 yards and a score, while Powe caught one pass for a 68-yard TD and intercepted a pair of passes.

“They have versatile players,” Hill said. “Nobody got tackled by one guy whether that was a receiver getting covered one-on-one or a running back beating a one-on-one tackle in the hole and making it hurt. They have some talented kids.”

The Trojans, who trailed 28-0 before recording their first first down, had 70 yards of offense in the first half.

Mendota avoided the shutout when J.P Belmonte ran for a 7-yard touchdown with 5:24 left in the third quarter, but the Boilermakers immediately responded with a 72-yard kick return touchdown by Marquez Logan.

The Trojans entered the game short-handed as three of their four captains — Damien Magallanes, Christian Tellez and Sean Figueroa — were out with injury.

“Those guys are good players,” Hill said. “They’ve played a lot of football. We have a smaller roster, so filling those roles is critical. We have to find somebody to fill those spots in all three phases.”

The Trojans (5-2, 2-2 TRC East) look to bounce back as they play host to Newman (4-3, 2-2) at 5 p.m. Saturday.

“We’ll prepare for Newman as best as we possibly can,” Hill said. “We’ll digest what we can and move on to senior night on Saturday.”