Too steep a Hill to climb: Althoff running back ends Central’s season with monster effort in state semifinals

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — The Camp Point Central football team got in the path of a freight train, and it was wearing blue and gold.

Belleville Althoff cranked out 533 rushing yards — 319 of which came courtesy of University of Oregon commit Dierre Hill Jr. — and steamrolled its way to a 58-19 victory in Saturday’s Class 1A semifinal.

“It’s probably the most talented 1A team that’s probably ever existed in terms of individual talent,” Central coach Brad Dixon said.

The Crusaders, who feature three NCAA Division I commits and multiple others with D-I offers, scored a touchdown on all eight possessions and scored on the first or second play on five occasions.

“It really boils down to we couldn’t stop them,” Dixon said.

The Panthers matched the Crusaders blow for blow throughout much of the first half. After a 65-yard touchdown run by Crusaders quarterback Jayden Ellington, the Panthers answered with an 89-yard touchdown toss from Elijah Genenbacher to Nate Peters on a third and long.

The Panthers recovered a pooch kickoff then went 31 yards over the next six plays and found the end zone when Curtis Rigg powered his way in from 5 yards out to give the Panthers a 12-7 lead with 7:28 left in the first quarter.

Hill burst through the line and pulled away from the Panthers’ defense for a 53-yard touchdown on the first play of the Crusaders’ ensuing possession, but again the Panthers responded. Genenbacher led the Panthers on a 12-play, 77-yard drive that ended on a Kadin Niekamp 2-yard touchdown plunge to allow the Panthers to regain the lead at 19-15.

On the fourth play of the Crusaders’ next drive, Hill sprinted 38 yards for the second of his five touchdowns to give his team a 22-19 lead, and the avalanche was on. The Crusaders outscored the Panthers 36-0 from that point forward and stopped the Panthers at the 1-yard line twice — once at the goal line on the final play before halftime and again on a fourth and goal with 10:50 left in the fourth quarter, which led to a 98-yard Hill touchdown on the next play.

“We’ve been behind early this year a couple different times, so I knew our guys would fight,” Dixon said. “The pooch kick was big, and we knew we were going to have to do stuff like that. We just kind of ran out of bullets.

“If we could have scored before half and score coming out of the half, it would have been a one score game, but coulda, woulda, shoulda.”

Hill also scored on runs of 23 yards midway through the second quarter and 50 yards with 2:25 to go in the first half that gave the Crusaders a 36-19 halftime lead.

“He’s going to Oregon for a reason,” Dixon said. “(Class) 1A football players don’t normally go to Oregon. To have five of those guys (committed to or receiving offers from Division 1 schools), you just don’t see that. We give our guys credit. We made them fight and we made them earn it. I think they left here realizing they were in a fight.”

Hill put his patience on display on each of those touchdowns, waiting for the gaps to open up and exploding through them.

“It’s everything, especially as a running back,” Hill said of that patience. “You have to let your box develop on certain plays, certain pulls. It takes my linemen a second or two to get there so I have to wait for them, just see that hole and get it.”

The Crusaders avenged their loss to the Panthers in the 2023 state quarterfinals.

“I’ve thought about it every day,” Crusaders coach Austin Frazier said of that loss. “It’s all respect for their program. We thought we had a pretty good shot to get to the state finals last year and Camp Point put a stop to it. We’ve had this one circled every day of the year.”

Hill said his performance this time around provided the highlight of his career.

“It definitely is,” Hill said. “It’s such a blessing. I’m so happy right now and just blessed.”

The Crusaders (13-0) advance to the Class 1A state title game against Lena-Winslow, which defeated LeRoy 42-13 in the other semifinal. The state championship game will kickoff at 10 a.m. on Nov. 29 at Illinois State University’s Hancock Stadium.

“There was a lot of talk about us being really athletic, really talented. We never hear disciplined and detailed, and we won today because we were disciplined and detailed,” Frazier said. “I couldn’t be more proud of them.”