Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Knights breeze past Freeburg, 35-14

Detmer rushes for 184 yards and 2 TDs

FREEBURG -- Tyler Detmer provided the flash and dash, and Mater Dei's defense brought the hammer Friday night.

Detmer, Mater Dei's junior quarterback, rushed for a game-high 184 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries as the Knights galloped past Freeburg 35-14 in a second-round game of the Class 4A playoffs.

Detmer has thrown for more than 2,200 yards this season, but he's quickly changing the perception of Mater Dei as a pass-first team.

"Everybody thought we were a passing-type team for the first eight or nine weeks," Detmer said. "Our offensive line, they were getting sick and tired of hearing people tell them we're a passing team.

"That's what offensive linemen do. They love to run the ball, so we put it on their back and told them 'The season's on you. We'll go as far as you guys will take us.'"

The offensive line opened plenty of holes, but the elusive Detmer doesn't need much of a crease. He'll exploit even the smallest opening and turn it into big yards.

He proved that with a 62-yard TD run and a 17-yard TD scamper in the second quarter.

"He's a good football player," said Freeburg coach Ronnie Stuart. "We knew that going into the game and he showed it tonight. He's a quick football player. It seemed like he found the gaps in the defense when he needed to split through there and get some yardage."

Lucas Hemann rushed for 73 yards on 20 carries and scored on a 7-yard run, and Detmer added a 21-yard TD pass to Collin Toennies as the Knights (10-1) sailed into the quarterfinals for the third time in the past four years.

Mater Dei, which has won 10 straight, will be at home next week against the winner of Metamora (9-1) and Champaign St. Thomas More (10-0). Those two meet at 2 p.m. today in Champaign.

Mater Dei won despite fumbling four times, getting penalized 11 times for 94 yards and having offensive coordinator Jimmy Warnecke ejected from the game for arguing with the officials.

Per Illinois High School Association rules, Warnecke cannot coach in next week's game.

"We'll take it," said first-year Mater Dei coach Jim Stiebel, of the victory earned by his team in front of a crowd of 2,300. "We'll take any type of win we can get. That's what we're going to do. It wasn't pretty. There was nothing pretty about that game, but we'll take it.

"Tyler played outstanding. He's just a hard-nosed kid and just wants to put extra effort in there. Our defense battled. They gave them nothing."

Freeburg quarterback Alex Fricke was under duress most of the night as Mater Dei defensive coordinator Austin Frazier dialed up heavy pressure.

Fricke was sacked four times and completed just 11-of-29 pass attempts for 122 yards and two TDs. He was intercepted by Toennies, who returned it 32 yards with 3:48 to play in the third quarter to give Mater Dei a 28-7 lead.

"Mater Dei did a good job keeping us off-balanced with coverages, and it was real hard to get us in a rhythm," Stuart said. "They did a good job defensively of keeping us off-track."

Senior running back Tyler Adamson rushed for team-high 92 yards on 18 carries and broached the 1,000-yard mark for the season for the Midgets.

Mater Dei led 21-7 at halftime behind a monster first half by Detmer, who rushed for 143 yards and two TDs on eight carries in the first two quarters. He executed several sleight-of-hand fakes that would have made David Copperfield proud.

Mater Dei's defense set the tone on the first series of the game, stopping Adamson for no gain on 4th-and-inches from the Knights' 35-yard line.

The Knights turned the stop into points, capping a 13-play drive with a 7-yard TD run by Hemann. Freeburg answered, tying the game at 7 on a 9-yard TD reception by Keegan Patterson on a slant pass from Fricke at the 11:15 mark of the second quarter.

Mater Dei's quick-strike offense surfaced on the ensuing series as Detmer faked a handoff to Hemann and sprinted 62 yards for the score, putting the Knights up 14-7.

"They're a tough defense, but we feel like if we play well, we can handle anybody," Detmer said. "We thought if we did our thing, we could get the job done tonight."

The Knights' defense stopped Freeburg on fourth down two more times before halftime, once from the 35 and again from the 11.

Not content with a 7-point halftime lead, the Knights drove 89 yards in the final 2:10, scoring with 5.4 seconds left in the half on a 17-yard TD run by Detmer. A 15-yard roughing-the-passer penalty and a 6-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on the Midgets aided the drive for Mater Dei.

"Humungous," Stiebel said of the score.

The Midgets have lost nine straight games to Mater Dei dating back to 2002.