Football: Dixon dominates on both sides of the ball to beat Stillman Valley

DIXON – Things were going so smoothly for Dixon in its season opener Friday night against Stillman Valley that the offense was calling its shots.

Leading by four touchdowns early in the fourth quarter, but trying to regain momentum after a long scoring drive by the Cardinals, Dukes senior Eli Davidson stood on the sideline next to head coach Jared Shaner and assistant coach JD Gieson.

“Coach, if you put in the game, I’ll score,” Davidson said.

Shaner sent in his standout receiver/linebacker, and about 30 seconds later, Davidson was in the end zone after catching a 27-yard touchdown pass from classmate Cullen Shaner.

That’s just the way things went for the Dukes in this one, as they dominated from the start in a 56-14 win at A.C. Bowers Field.

[ Photos from Dixon vs. Stillman Valley football ]

“I was on the sideline that whole drive with cramps, and we were getting stalled out a little bit, and I had full confidence that if I went in there, the coaches were going to call a play where I was going to be able to get open, and I knew wherever I ran, Cullen was going to put it right on me, and that’s exactly what happened,” Davidson said. “He had a phenomenal game, and he’s been phenomenal all summer; he has the best arm talent I’ve ever seen.

“So I kind of lumbered my way toward the end zone and he put it on me, then I lumbered my way back to the sideline.”

Dixon (1-0, 1-0 BNC) amassed 419 yards of total offense, and Cullen Shaner was 24-for-33 for 285 yards and four touchdowns; he hit six different receivers for completions.

Seven different players combined to rush for 129 yards, and Owen Belzer (1 yard), Davidson (19 yards) and backup quarterback Jagger Kemp (17 yards) had touchdown runs.

“It’s great to get everybody going, because it gets everybody excited,” Cullen Shaner said. “It’s great to have that many weapons as a quarterback; it’s the best feeling in the world. I can give it to the X, H, Y, Z, F back, whoever we need to, and they’re going to make a play.”

For the second straight season, the Dukes opened the scoring against Stillman with a return touchdown. Last year, it was the opening kickoff en route to a 28-14 win; this time, it was Davidson’s 25-yard interception return off a ball tipped at the line of scrimmage by Aidan Hoggard on the Cardinals’ third play from scrimmage.

“That’s all credit to Hoggard right there; he actually punched out the fumble that I recovered too, so I’m taking his shine for both of those, but I’ll give him a little shout-out,” Davidson said. “I saw it tip up in the air, and I thought, ‘I’ve never had an interception, so I’m going to go up and get it.’ As soon as it touched my hands, I looked forward and saw the pylon, and I just ran as fast as I could – and I made it.”

Dixon’s defense also forced three first-half fumbles, and the offense cashed two of them in for scores. Belzer’s short run capped a 34-yard drive to make it 21-0 less than nine minutes into the game, then Cullen Shaner connected with Tyson Dambman for a 32-yard scoring strike on the first play following Stillman’s third fumble for a 42-7 lead midway through the second quarter.

“When our defense shows up like that – and we expect them to do that game in and game out – we can take control,” Cullen Shaner said. “We’ve got a great defensive coordinator [in Tyler Matteson], great defensive players, and when they’re out there making plays, it makes offense so much easier. When we have comfortable lead because we stop them on defense, it just makes everything easier.”

In addition to forcing four turnovers, Dixon’s D limited the Cardinals to just 184 total yards – with 68 of those coming on a halfback pass late in the first quarter to cut the Stillman deficit to 21-7. In the first half, the Cardinals gained just 24 yards in addition to the long touchdown.

“We knew coming in that they were physical up front, but Coach Matteson says every day, ‘Nobody runs the ball on us.’ We don’t want anybody getting rushing yards on us, and me and Jake Whelan might come out on the stat sheet with more tackles, but those come from Tyler Zepezauer and our other D-linemen,” Davidson said. “They play their hearts out, they take double teams all game long so us linebackers can be untouched and run and go make plays. They do their jobs, and they don’t get the shine, but those guys are phenomenal. And Coach [Laiff] Jacobson has turned all of them into magicians in there; they just get to their gaps and hold up strong.”

The Dukes answered that Stillman score with a six-play, 64-yard scoring drive, capped with Cullen Shaner’s 1-yard TD pass to Gabe Rowley – their second short connection for a TD in the opening quarter.

Dambman caught eight passes for 74 yards, and Davidson had six catches for 83. Rowley had five receptions for 29 yards, and James Simpson had two catches, one for 33 yards and the other for 36.

“We’ve struggled in the red zone, but our mindset has just been to do whatever we can to score when we get close [to the goal line],” Cullen Shaner said. “And when the defense sets us up there like they did tonight, it fires us up to score. We were moving the ball today, and it was a nice start to the season.”

“Those guys up front on the offensive line were great tonight,” Davidson added. “There were a couple of times where I ran an out route, then ran a slant, then ran another out route all in one play because Cullen was just standing back in the pocket free. Seeing that from the offensive line makes me really comfortable going forward, knowing we’ve got guys who are willing to put their full effort into keeping Cullen clean in the pocket.”

Stillman did put together one strong drive. Their only possession of the third quarter covered 79 yards in 15 plays, taking 6:56 off the clock and ending in Jaxon Barrett’s 2-yard scoring plunge on fourth-and-goal.

Barrett finished with 69 yards on 17 carries, and Brock Needs added 45 yards on 11 rushes for the Cardinals. Henry Hildreth threw the 68-yard touchdown pass to Jackson Musial.

“Credit to them, because what they did in the third quarter is what they really like to do – pound it with the fullback – but our defense played well tonight,” Coach Shaner said. “Especially in the first half, our defense played really well. They gave up that one halfback pass, and that was it. I was very proud of our kids for that.

“And offensively, we’ve got guys that can go make plays when the ball’s in their hands, and that’s a good problem to have. Last week I told our guys, ‘I wish we had a few more footballs to distribute around to people,’ because we have four, five, six guys that when they get the ball in their hands, they can make things happen, and I think we saw that tonight.”