"Defense, defense, defense." All night, the crowd on the home side chanted these words, as the Danville Blue Devils' defense completely dominated in their matchup against Centerburg, holding the Trojans scoreless in a 12-0 Blue Devil victory.
Danville’s defense set the tone early in the game, way before the first touchdown was even scored. Senior defensive back Levi Furay intercepted a pass with 7:25 left in the first quarter, to give Danville the ball. After having to kick back off to the Trojans, Danville’s No. 1 linebacker, Josh Byers, immediately intercepted the next pass, only 3 minutes after Furay’s. The Blue Devils marched down the field over the course of the final 4 minutes of play in the first quarter, which ended with running back Aidan Burke ripping a 26-yard run into the endzone to give Danville their first touchdown of the night.
Following the touchdown, Centerburg fumbled the return, which immediately gave the Blue Devils the ball back. The second half failed to result in scoring from either team, as Danville went into the locker room with a 6-0 lead.
Coming out the gate in the third quarter, Burke took off for a 66-yard sprint, but after multiple penalties against the offense, Danville was forced to punt. The Trojans were unable to do anything on offense, and as a result of so little time on the field, the defense stayed on the field and started to get tired. Blue Devils quarterback Jacob Hackman took advantage of the tired Centerburg defense and took the ball on a 5-yard run to the outside, scoring the final points of the night.
When it was all said and done, Centerburg was held to a total of 214 offensive yards. In comparison, the Blue Devils tallied up 350 yards, and that was just on offense.
Danville Coach Matthew Blum had nothing other than words of praise to say after the game.
"I'm very proud of our kids, they came out and battled. The defense played a solid 10 out (of) 10 tonight. Resilience was the name of the game tonight for our group of kids. I'm just so proud," he said.
Burke, who had another great night on the ground, ran the ball 15 times for 176 yards, and averaged almost 12 yards per carry.
Hackman finished the night with an almost perfect completion percentage as he completed 8 of his 9 passes for 98 yards.
Centerburg quarterback Blane Ball concluded his night with an unusually poor performance, going 13-26 for 157 yards and two interceptions.
