Saturday, Sep. 06, 2008

Knights run past Kahoks, throwing just one pass in 27-14 win

TROY -- Being one-dimensional worked Friday night for the Triad Knights.

The Knights attempted just one pass against the visiting Collinsville Kahoks, an incompletion, and rode their ground game to a 27-14 non-conference victory.

"That's Triad football," said senior fullback Ryan Beck. "We have a good passing game, but Triad football is all about running."

Beck rushed for a game-high 79 yards on 17 carries and scored on a 5-yard run for the Knights, who lost four fumbles but were able to overcome their mistakes.

Quarterback Kristian Moon (67 yards), running back Chris Rimar (63 yards) and tailback J.J. Jones (62 yards) helped the Knights control things on the ground and even their record at 1-1.

Given the wet field conditions due to the remnants of Hurricane Gustuv that inundated the area the past two days, Triad head coach Paul Bassler and his staff figured the passing game and option attack would be grounded.

"We knew that the field conditions were going to be an issue one way or the other," Bassler said. "We didn't know how it was going to affect us. It just seemed like we were slipping around and sliding around, and they were able to react to our perimeter game and our option wasn't working.

"My hat's off to Collinsville. They had a great game plan coming in."

Of Triad's 53 offensive plays, 52 were runs. The shining moment of the ground game came in the fourth quarter.

Leading 20-14, Triad began the period on their own 29 yard line. Thus began a marathon 18-play drive that chewed up 9 minutes, 56 seconds off the clock.

"I looked at our coaches, then up at the clock and said 'Has this been the whole fourth quarter?'" said Collinsville coach Mike Liljegren. "They did a good job of controlling the game at that point. I can't fault our defense. Our defense was playing lights out at that point, but they made the first downs when they had to and didn't make mistakes on that drive."

Triad converted five third downs on the drive. Collinsville (0-2) finally got the ball back with 2:04 to play after the Knights' fourth fumble on Collinsville's 5-yard line.

"There at the beginning of the (fourth) quarter, we just decided to get into an army and see what we were made and what they were made of," Bassler said. "We had the lead and knew we had to eat up some clock. We wanted to keep the ball out of (Collinsville quarterback Jevon) Hawkins' hands and give him as few opportunities as possible to beat us. Fortunately, it worked."

Triad iced the game with 1:06 left on a 13-yard touchdown run by Moon.

Hawkins, who had over 400 yards of total offense in last week's 33-26 loss to Springfield, ran for 73 yards but completed just 4-of-13 pass attempts for 31 yards.

Tim McGary rushed for team-high 77 yards on 17 carries for the Kahoks.

"We just sputtered a little bit," Liljegren said. "We just couldn't seem to move the sticks consistently, and we couldn't take advantage of those (mistakes)."

Triad started the first half with a bang and ended with one, too.

Scott Rothe took the opening kickoff at his own 20, found a seam on the right side of the field and made quick work of 80 yards, giving the Knights a 7-0 lead 13 seconds into the game.

Collinsville -- which was coming off a 33-26 loss to Springfield -- forged a 14-7 lead before the end of the quarter on a 2-yard TD run by Hawkins and a 44-yard fumble return by senior linebacker Mike Luther.

Triad, which rushed for 138 yards in the first half by using seven different running backs, pulled within 14-13 on a 5-yard TD run by Beck. Jones scored from 10 yards out with 43.6 seconds left, putting the Knights up 20-14 at halftime.

Contact reporter Rod Kloeckner at rkloeckner@bnd.com or 239-2663.