Blue Bullets take kick out of Mustangs with stingy defensive effort in first half of playoff game

KNOXVILLE, Ill.  — As the Unity-Payson football team broke its final postgame huddle of the season, senior quarterback/defensive back Ryle Duke found coach Matt Woodworth.

The two embraced, heads buried in each other’s shoulders for several moments, following the Mustangs’ 33-14 Class 2A first-round playoff loss Saturday afternoon at Knoxville.

“In every year, you hate seeing that it’s your last game with that group of seniors, but especially a kid like Ryle or a kid like (senior running back/linebacker) Brian Dieker,” Woodworth said. “They meant so much to this program the last four years. It’s definitely hard to know that it’s the last game with them.”

Seventh-seeded Knoxville (8-2) raced to an early lead and corralled the high-powered offense for the 10th-seeded Mustangs (6-4) for much of the afternoon. The Blue Bullets, who will play at Bismarck-Henning in the second round, held Unity-Payson to just 41 yards and one first down in the first half.

After getting a first down on the game’s first series of downs, the Mustangs didn’t get past the chains again until less than 4 minutes remained in the third quarter. By that time, Knoxville had built a 20-0 lead.

“They really gave us fits up front and had guys flying around,” Woodworth said. “It just made life tough for us today.”

Duke was unable to connect on his first eight passes, which included a pair of drops and a long ball down the seam just off the outstretched fingertips of Dieker.

“The first half we just barely missed a few plays,” Woodworth said. “A couple passes off receivers’ hands that we just couldn’t quite bring in, and they really started selling out and shutting down our run and made us one-dimensional. It was hard to get anything going to get any momentum.”

Meanwhile, the Blue Bullets scored touchdowns on two of their first four plays from scrimmage. Oscar Young found the end zone on a 38-yard run, and Braden Downs hauled in a 49-yard TD pass from Beau Honeycutt — Knoxville’s only completion of the day — for a 13-0 lead less than 8 minutes in.

Knoxville’s wing-T offense racked up 470 total yards, including 421 rushing on 66 carries. The Blue Bullets’ three primary backs each reached triple figures. Young had 27 carries for 204 yards and three touchdowns, Jaxin Johnson ran for 113 yards on 17 carries and Bo Laws had 108 yards and a TD on 17 totes.

“It was just big plays that they hit on us defensively. Then offensively, we just couldn’t do the small things we were doing all season,” Duke said. “We see wing-Ts all the time in the WIVC, but this is just a new form. They just go that much faster. They’re that much bigger. They cover that much more ground to the point where it’s hard to cover.”

Despite that, the Mustangs still made enough plays to stay in the ballgame into the fourth quarter. Duke intercepted a pass deep in Knoxville territory early in the second quarter, and Chase Lomax recovered a fumble at the Blue Bullets’ 12-yard line on the opening possession of the third.

Dieker (11 carries, 29 yards) took a middle screen 17 yards to the end zone to get Unity-Payson within 20-8 with 3:28 left in the third, but Knoxville answered with a 12-play drive that chewed up nearly 5:00 and ended with Laws going in from 2 yards out.

“We kind of righted the ship there in the second quarter and third quarter and got some things going, but they just slowly grinded us down over the day,” Woodworth said.

Duke, who finished 5 of 14 for 82 yards passing and two TDs, connected with sophomore Johnny Keefe for a 48-yard TD in the final minutes. That was the biggest play of the afternoon for the Mustangs, who totaled 143 yards and six first downs on 34 plays.

“They made us earn it,” Knoxville coach Ryan Hebard said of the Mustangs. “We were able to sneak some over the top and bust one or two here and there, but they made us earn that last half really hard.”