Streator rolls to a 52-0 season-opening victory at East Peoria

EAST PEORIA — In last year’s season opener, the Streator Bulldogs football team battled East Peoria in a back-and-fourth defensive battle until securing the victory in the final minutes.

New season, new Bulldogs.

On Friday at EastSide Centre, Streator drove 69 yards in 12 plays on the game’s opening possession and took the lead for good on Aneefy Ford’s 11-yard cutback score on the way to a 52-0 triumph over the Raiders.

It is the seventh straight time Streator has defeated East Peoria.

And while the 52 points are eye-popping, the Streator defense was just as solid, holding East Peoria to minus-59 yards rushing and 9 total yards, while forcing four turnovers.

“Tonight it started with our defense,” Streator coach Kyle Tutt said. “We lost a lot of defensive kids from last year to graduation, but assistant coach Scott Luckey rebuilt our defense in the offseason and found the right kids to fill those spots.

“They did a great job tonight of creating all the turnovers they came up with and taking advantage of mistakes that [East Peoria] made.”

Streator made it 16-0 late in the first quarter on the first of two scoring plunges by Sabby Nieto and held a 24-0 lead at halftime after a second-quarter 25-yard pass from Christian Benning to DJ White.

“The first 12 plays were scripted and all on Christian,” Tutt said. “Having a guy that you can count on and trust with that responsibility is huge.”

The Bulldogs forced a three-and-out to start the second half and made it 30-0 on Ford’s 2-yard run around right end.

On the Raiders’ next play, Nieto picked off a pass, which turned into his own 2-yard TD run three plays later.

“Coach Luckey just told me, ‘We need this ball back,’” said Nieto, who also recorded a pair of sacks. “To be honest, my thought of getting the ball back was getting to the quarterback, maybe getting a sack and maybe a fumble. Then all of a sudden the ball is coming my way, and I was able to hang on to it.

“We are a big family. If one of us falls down, we have each other’s back. On defense, I felt like we would have a good game, and we did.”

From there, Benning returned his second interception of the contest 50 yards for a score, a bad snap by EP went out of the end zone for a safety, and Isiah Brown scored from five yards out midway through the running-clock fourth quarter.

Streator finished with 283 total yards, 213 on the ground. Ford finished with 17 carries for 88 yards, White nine for 48 and Logan Aukland seven for 33. Benning was 4-of-7 passing for 70 yards.

“Our offense has a lot of things to clean up, but I thought our lines were physical,” Tutt said. “Aneefy and D.J. ran the ball hard, and our special teams were good. We had some mistakes tonight, but we didn’t let them affect us. That was something that was sometimes an issue last year, but tonight we shook those things off and moved on to the next play. There has been a lot of growth in this group over the last year.”

Next Friday Streator hosts rival Ottawa for the program’s 98th all-time meeting on the night the Bulldogs’ field is renamed “Doug Dieken Stadium.”