Knights flatten Wheelers

A heavy dose of the run game on offense and a smothering defensive effort helped Fremont-Mills to a one-sided 44-0 victory over Audubon in Eight-player, District 9 football Friday in Tabor.

Offensively, the Knights (2-1) dominated the time of possession all game long and rushed for 327 yards in the win. On defense, they shut out a Wheelers (1-3) team that entered averaging 35 points per game, while limiting them to 81 total yards of offense.

For Fremont-Mills head coach Greg Ernster the win looked a lot like his team’s most complete performance thus far this season.

“It would have to be pretty darn close,” the coach said. “Especially on defense. We stuck to the game plan and did not let big plays happen. We rallied and tackled.”

With a steady wind blowing for much of the game, the Knights took full advantage of their big offensive line and running game. Of their 21 offense snaps in the first quarter, all 21 were running plays that netted them 113 yards and an early 12-0 lead. That lead would swell to 20-0 at the half when quarterback Taylor Reed raced into the endzone from 15 yards out on a fourth-and four with :18 seconds remaining.

Out of halftime, the Knight defense forced a Wheeler three-and-out and needed just one play – a Reed dart to Paxten VanHouten 23-yard touchdown toss – and a two-point conversion to go ahead 28-0.

A second straight Wheeler punt set up a Knights’ nine play, 45-yard drive that ate up nearly six minutes of clock and ended with a Braxton Blackburn TD scamper from 14 yards out. The two-point conversion kicked in the mercy rule running clock and all but ended the Wheeler’s hopes.

Blackburn led the Knights with a 164-yards on a season-high 20 carries. He also scored three TDs. Payten VanHouten added 87 yards on 11 carries.

“We knew we had to be physical with and we knew if we could be physical all game that would go in our favor and I felt we stuck to that pretty well,” Ernster said.

On defense, Ernster’s game plan was simple: control the Wheeler playmakers, in particular, quarterback Aaron Olsen. And the Knights did that. Olsen was limited to 20 yards rushing on 13 carries and he completed 3-of-8 passes for 26 yards and was intercepted once.

“We did not want him to get in the open field,” Ernster said. “Give them credit for finding ways to get him open but we made some adjustments. He’s a very athletic QB we did not want in the open field.”

The Knights had eight tackles for loss on the night, including four sacks. Payten VanHouten led the defense with 2.5 sacks and 13 total tackles.

Fremont-Mills is back in action this week on the road at Bedford (2-1), likely the Knights best challenge yet in the young season.

“Of what I’ve seen, they are very athletic,” Ernster said. “They try and spread you out and run a lot of jet motion. We need to make sure we play gap assignment football and be physical.”

Kickoff in Bedford is set for 7 p.m.