Richmond-Burton defense clamps down on Quincy Notre Dame

RICHMOND – After a difficult week 1 against a talented Marian Central offense, Richmond-Burton had a lot it wanted to clean up, especially defensively.

Consider that mission accomplished against another talented club from Quincy Notre Dame.

The Rockets forced three turnovers and made one huge stop to start the second half as they survived some offensive struggles and pulled away for a 25-6 win Friday night.

“Overall it’s a good second ballgame,” R-B coach Mike Noll said. “In the early part of the season, you find out where you are, and we’ve played two pretty darn good teams. It’s really got us ready for the conference schedule.”

The Rockets (2-0) received a jolt of adrenaline on the opening kickoff as Jack Martens returned it 60 yards to set the offense up with great field position. The Rockets took advantage with an 11-play drive that ended in an 8-yard touchdown pass from JT Groh to Braxtin Nellessen on third-and-goal.

But from that point, it was a struggle at times for the Rockets offense, which fumbled the ball away twice. Luckily, the defense was on point, tallying turnovers on Notre Dame’s first two drives, including an impressive pick six by lineman Logan Garcia with 3:09 left in the first quarter.

“All week we’ve been practicing if the quarterback goes to the opposite side to stay on the back side and watch for the screen,” Garcia said. “That’s what I did and picked it off and ran it into the end zone.”

Luke Johnson and Daniel Kalinowski also had interceptions for Richmond-Burton in that first half. However, despite those turnovers and an offensive touchdown from Kalinowski in the second quarter, it still was just 19-6 going into halftime after Raiders quarterback Noah Lunt found a wide open Joseph Doellman for a 37-yard score.

However, that set up the biggest defensive stop of the game for Richmond-Burton.

On the first series of the second half, the Raiders (0-2) were on the move inside Richmond-Burton territory and facing second-and-3. But after a huge tackle for loss by Owen Wisniewski and a short gain on third down, Jeff Lehn and Trace Mandel held Notre Dame for no gain on fourth down to end the drive with 8:33 to play in the third period.

“We were told their offensive line was going to improve a lot from Week 1 to Week 2,” said Wisniewski, who also had a sack in the first half. “They didn’t play the best in Week 1, and they were going to come back and hit us hard. So our biggest points of emphasis were to stay low. Eyes down and read your keys.

“It was great because I knew we needed it. We needed to get our offense back on the field.”

Notre Dame had just 16 yards of offense after that stop while Richmond-Burton salted the game with a 1-yard scoring run from Nellesen with 10:37 to play.

Nellessen finished with 94 yards on 23 carries for the Rockets. Ryan Saranzak had 76 yards on 14 carries.

Lunt was 9-of-19 passing for 96 yards for Quincy Notre Dame.