Panthers earn another shot at Warriors after posting shutout in Class 1A playoff game

CAMP POINT, Ill. — The defending Class 1A state football champion remains alive and has a little revenge in mind.

Camp Point Central was dominant in all phases in rainy, windswept conditions Saturday afternoon, scoring all five of its touchdowns on as many possessions in the first half to roll to a 40-0 victory over mistake-prone Toledo Cumberland in a second-round playoff matchup.

Kadin Niekamp scored on two short runs and Elijah Genenbacher threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as the third-seeded Panthers controlled the contest from start to finish to run their winning streak to nine games and improve to 10-1 overall.

It sets up a rematch with Western Illinois Valley Conference rival and second-seeded Hardin Calhoun in next weekend’s quarterfinals. The Warriors, who outlasted Sesser Valier 14-6 Saturday, used a last-second touchdown and extra point in Week 2 to hand Central its only blemish over the past two seasons with a 14-13 victory.

And the Panthers already were turning the page and looking ahead moments after demolishing Cumberland.

“We’ll do the same things we do every week, but we definitely have that revenge factor,” Genenbacher said. “We want to come back and get them for what happened Week 2. We’ll just get on the film and be as prepared as we can be for that game.”

Sixth-seeded Cumberland wasn’t prepared for what awaited it Saturday. The Pirates, averaging nearly 30 points and 300 yards of offense per game, were held to one first down and 26 total yards. They lost three fumbles, had a pass intercepted and crossed midfield only once.

Trailing 8-0 after a punt and Niekamp’s 6-yard touchdown run on Central’s first possession, Cumberland opted to go for it on fourth and 2 from its own 28-yard line less than five minutes into the first quarter.

Genenbacher dropped tailback Logan Gerhardt for a 1-yard loss, and Niekamp scored from the 1-yard line seven plays later to increase the lead to 16-0.

“They probably felt like they needed to take some chances,” Central coach Brad Dixon said after his team ran its home winning streak to 25 games. “We didn’t get off to a good start last week and our guys kind of understood that and wanted to come out and prove a point.”

Cumberland turned the ball over on downs after reaching Central territory for the only time late in the first period. The Panthers proceeded to march 53 yards on six plays to make it 24-0. Genenbacher accounted for 42 of those yards, bowling over several would-be tacklers to score from 23 yards out.

Nate Peters intercepted Pirates’ quarterback Hudson McElravy and returned it 25 yards to the Cumberland 22, Genenbacher hit Curtis Rigg for a scoring pass on the next play to balloon the lead to 32-0.

A Cumberland fumble on the ensuring kickoff enabled the Panthers to score a third time in seven and a half minutes when Genenbacher found Kolin Bockhold all alone in the end zone for a 20-yard touchdown strike with 2:12 left to make it 40-0 and forced the second half to be played under a running clock.

“We do what we do on offense because we get weather conditions like this, so we didn’t have to change a lot,” said Dixon, who team took advantage of short fields to rush 49 times for 223 yards, with most of that coming between the tackles.

“We had to be a little bit more secure with the ball and run a little less side-to-side, but we know when you get deep in the playoffs you have got to be able to run the football and you have got to stop the run. We did both of those.”

Genenbacher finished with a team-high 75 yards rushing on eight attempts to surpass the 2,000-yard mark for his career before exiting at halftime. He now stands at 2,013 yards. He also completed all four of his pass attempts for 65 yards.

The shutout was the 16^th for Central over the last three seasons. Cumberland (8-3) managed just 18 yards on 14 rushing attempts and completed one of eight pass attempts for eight yards.

The victory was the 135^th for Dixon in his 14-season tenure at Central, one more than the program produced in its history before his arrival. His teams have now won 20 of 24 postseason games at home.

If the Panthers want to continue their quest to reach the state title game for the third consecutive season, they will need to beat Hardin Calhoun on the road.

“We had to go through them last year,” Dixon said of Central’s 32-14 victory in the second round. “We played pretty well overall down there (in Week 2). They were just in a better place than we were early in the season. We feel like we’ve improved.”