UTICA – The game-time temperature at Utica High School was 91 degrees Friday.
The visiting East Knox Bulldogs didn’t notice. You don’t tend to notice the heat when you’re on a hot streak.
Led by Dillon Moreland and Cole Delaughder, who each scored a pair of touchdowns and intercepted a pass on defense, the Bulldogs scorched the Utica Redskins, 37-6.
“Everybody was really on it tonight,” Delaughder said. “It shifts momentum; when you do well on one side, you can do well on the other side.”
Moreland and Delaughder scored in the first five minutes to set the tone for the rest of the game. Moreland scored on a 30-yard pass from quarterback Peyton Lester to give the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead just 92 seconds in. On the next drive, Delaughder pounded into the endzone on a 1-yard burst.
In the second quarter, Moreland scored on a brilliant over-the-shoulder catch at the goal line on a 20-yard play.
“I just saw the ball and I had to go get it,” Moreland said of the catch. “My coach taught me to demand the ball from the sky, so I went up and grabbed it. I was a little bit surprised, myself.”
Delaughder set his second touchdown up on his own. He intercepted a pass near midfield and took the ball to the Utica 28. Seven plays later, Delaughder scored from 3 yards out, giving his team a 27-0 lead with 1:57 to play in the first half.
Delaughder finished with 48 yards on 13 carries. Moreland had three catches for 67 yards. Teammate Shane Knepp led all receivers with 102 yards on eight catches, while Jordan Riley added four catches for 42 yards.
The orchestrator on the field for East Knox (2-0) was Lester, a senior who continues to show improvement over last season. Lester was 18 out of 25 for 257 yards passing. He threw three touchdowns, including two to Moreland and one to Knepp.
“He (Lester) is the kind of guy that, when he goes on the field, the other 10 guys want to follow him,” East Knox coach Cody Reese said. “That’s what you want in a leader, especially in a quarterback. He’s a great leader and a great person.”
Utica (0-2) struggled on offense through most of the game. The team managed just three first downs in the first three quarters before finally sustaining a drive in the waning minutes.
In that drive, quarterback Seth Miller marched his team 70 yards on nine plays, capping the drive with a 9-yard strike to Gavin Chinn for Utica’s only score.
As he ran off the field, Miller bolted down the sideline and yelled to the partisan Utica crowd, “I got one!”
“He never played high school football. He came out as a senior,” Utica head coach Charlie Rowley said of Miller, who finished 16 of 31 for 151 yards. “He’s coachable. He’s made a few mistakes, but he takes coaching and he forgets about it. That’s what you need if you’re a quarterback.”
Really, it wasn’t so much that Utica struggled on offense. East Knox was just brilliant on defense. The Bulldogs had six tackles for loss and picked off four passes overall, with Knepp and Blake Bonham snatching interceptions in the second half. The defense allowed just 63 yards until Utica’s final drive of the game more than doubled the total.
For the second straight week, the Bulldog defense shut out its opponent through three quarters, only to see the shutout snapped late in the game.
“We had the jayvee kids in there, working their tails off. They wanted it bad,” Reese said. “We almost had it. It certainly wasn’t for lack of effort.”
The last time East Knox lost to Utica was in 2015, when the Bulldogs finished 1-9 for the team’s 10th straight losing season. Then, Reese took the reins as head coach, and the team hasn’t finished with more losses than wins since.
The Bulldogs are 18-1 in their last 19 regular-season games, dating back to 2019. Their only loss in that stretch came last season on the road to eventual Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference champ Centerburg, and it took two overtimes for the Trojans to win.
“It feels great to be on this streak,” Delaughder said. “I can’t even explain how good this feels.”
East Knox’s next challenge is Crestview, a team that has scored 99 points in its first two games, including a 54-7 beatdown over Bucyrus on Friday.
“We have to execute at a higher level,” Reese said. “We aren’t consistent enough if we want to be a good team.”
Utica’s next game is at home against Fredericktown, which had to hold on to beat Northridge, 42-35, for its first win of the season. Utica’s last win in regulation was against the Freddies on Sept. 7, 2018.
