Dixon pulls away in second half for win over Genoa-Kingston

GENOA – Genoa-Kingston hung tough with the juggernaut Dixon for the first half, but the Dukes ran away with the game late for the 40-7 victory.

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The Dukes started out moving the ball on their first drive all the way down to the goal line, but Dixon quarterback Cullen Shaner was intercepted by the Cogs’ Patrick Young.

“You just got to leave it in the past,” Shaner said. “You can’t have that sitting in your head the rest of the game.”

Shaner left that interception in the past and found redemption on the next two drives, throwing touchdown passes to Eli Davidson both times.

The first touchdown pass was a 19-yard strike Davidson caught as he snuck behind the middle of the Cogs’ defense to put the Dukes (4-0) on the board with 4:50 left in the first quarter. The second pass was a 7-yard dart that found Davidson streaking across the end zone to put the Dukes up 14-7 in the final minutes of the first quarter.

The Cogs (2-2) only score came between those touchdowns thanks to a family connection between quarterback Nathan Kleba and his brother, Benjamin.

After a kickoff return set the Cogs up at their own 48-yard line, the first play of the drive was a 49-yard bomb from Nathan Kleba to Benjamin Kleba that set the Cogs up at the Dukes’ 3-yard line.

“I was surprised because all week in practice he was dropping them, but that one was big,” Nathan Kleba said. “That one was big.”

Peyton Meyer punched it in on the next play for the Cogs only score of the game.

It was all Dukes after the first quarter.

Shaner threw his third touchdown pass of the game on the Dukes’ first drive of the second quarter. This time, he hit Tyson Dambman for an 18-yard pass to put the Dukes up 20-7 going into halftime.

“Offensively, we have a lot of guys that we try to get the ball in their hands and good things happen,” Dukes’ coach Jared Shaner said. “I think just being patient and consistent is a key.”

After each team traded long drives that ended in turnovers on downs to open the third quarter, Shaner capped off a Dixon drive with an 8-yard run across the goal line to open up the Dixon lead.

“They were just chunking yards here and there, and we just couldn’t come up with the big stop,” Cogs coach Cam Davekos said. “We couldn’t move the ball offensively in the second half. That’s not a good combination.”

The Dukes scored twice in the fourth quarter. One touchdown was Devon Wallace from 5 yards out after he set up the Dukes deep in Cogs territory with a 52-yard run earlier in the drive.

The last score of the game came on an 8-yard run by Logan Mershon with 2:58 left in the game to give the Dukes a 40-7 lead.