Stifling defense leads Princeton into quarterfinals

PRINCETON — Prairie Central running back Tyler Curl took an option pitch and ran for 8 yards and a first down on the Hawks’ second play from scrimmage Saturday.

After that, the Princeton defense clamped down.

The Tigers held Prairie Central to just one more first down the rest of the game — in the fourth quarter with Princeton leading by 33 points — en route to a 40-0 victory Saturday in the second round of the Class 3A playoffs.

“I felt our defense was lights out all game,” Princeton coach Ryan Pearson said. “Our defense played about as good as they can play. Credit to our defensive staff for putting together a fantastic scheme and our kids for coming out and executing it. I couldn’t be more proud of our kids.”

The Tigers (10-1), who advance to the quarterfinals for the second postseason in a row, will play IC Catholic (10-1) next week in Elmhurst.

“I told our kids before the game they deserve to be here,” Pearson said. “We put in so much time and so much work. This started when we could get back from COVID. Our kids hit the weight room and continued to put time in. We have our kids watch film before school every day. To get to this point, that’s why you do all those things. I’m very happy for our kids because they’re an extremely hard working bunch.”

The Knights advanced with a 35-12 victory over Durand-Pecatonica.

“We’re going to face a pretty good team,” Princeton lineman Payne Miller said. “I think if we play to the best of our ability, we can go in there and give them a run for their money.”

Princeton’s stifling defense allowed the offense to shake off turnovers on their first two drives and set up the offense with short fields by forcing a punt and three consecutive turnovers in the second half, leading to 20 points in 1:53.

“We were ready,” Miller said. “We wanted to hit them in the mouth and made sure they stayed down. When we got those turnovers and points (in the third quarter), it was exhilarating.”

Prairie Central runs a triple option attack — unlike any offense the Tigers have seen this season, Pearson said — and had only thrown the ball 34 times this season entering Saturday’s game.

The Tigers limited the Hawks to 71 rushing yards on 36 carries — an average of 2 yards per carry — and intercepted both of Prairie Central’s pass attempts.

Prairie Central had just one double digit run and the Tigers held the Hawks to no gain or negative yardage on 14 carries.

“We knew they were going to run up the middle quite a bit,” Miller said. “We prepared by saying we were going to confuse them up front by moving back and forth with our shifts, and I think it did. They spaced because they were going to come up on those dives. I think they underestimated our power up front. Whenever they managed to do something against us, our linebackers were prepared to fill those gaps.”

The defense came up with several big plays in the third quarter.

After Princeton’s opening drive of the second half stalled at the Hawk 10-yard line, the Tiger defense held Prairie Central to negative-1 yard, and after a short punt Princeton took over at the Hawk 35.

That set up Augie Christiansen’s 7-yard touchdown run with 2:57 left in the third quarter.

Prairie Central’s next three drives ended when Logan Glancy recovered a fumble followed by back-to-back interceptions by Danny Cihocki and Teegan Davis.

That led to a 10-yard TD pass from Davis to Matt Lucas and a 14-yard TD run by Davis to give PHS 20 points in less than two minutes and a 33-0 lead with 1:04 left in the third quarter.

“We were more hyped up,” said Davis, who finished with 117 passing yards and a TD along with 119 rushing yards and a pair of scores. “We came out and were really aggressive. We wanted it more.

“(Three TDs in two minutes) is huge. They started getting down on themselves. We were up. We wanted to push and we did.”

Princeton added a 2-yard TD run by Glancy with 2:14 left.

The Tiger offense stumbled out of the gate with an interception and fumble ending its first two drives of the game.

However, Christiansen fought through multiple defenders to score a 3-yard TD on fourth down with 6:39 left in the first half and Davis tacked on a 28-yard TD scamper with 40.5 seconds left in the half to give Princeton a 13-0 lead at the break.

“I felt like we executed so much better outside of those first two drives,” Pearson said. “When we don’t turn the ball over, we’re pretty tough.

“The defense gave our offense some short fields. I think our offense is explosive enough that when you give us a short field, we’re pretty tough to stop. Our offensive line did a great job. We made a couple corrections at halftime. We made sure we took care of the line of scrimmage first and got that vertical push. Once we were able to do that, there weren’t as many lanes for those linebackers to run in. Once we made that adjustment, we were able to run the ball well in the second half.”