The fact that Stanley-Powers Lake senior tailback Gideon Johnson had more offense than the entire Killdeer football team in the second half of a Region 4 contest on Friday didn't mean much in the end.
After all, Killdeer junior running back Josh Karey did the exact same thing to the Blue Jays in the first half.
The difference?
Karey had a pair of 3-yard touchdowns in the final five minutes of the first half to propel Killdeer to a 21-6 victory at the Killdeer High School football field in Class A action.
"Our line did great," Karey said. "They opened up holes all night."
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Though the offensive line can't be knocked for Killdeer's poor offensive output in the second half, something drastically changed from one half to the other.
"If it's working, run it," Killdeer coach Chuck Wagner said of his first-half rushing attack. "Josh really runs hard. ... We never had the ball much in the second half."
Karey finished the first half with 18 carries for 108 yards, but had just four touches for five yards in the second half.
"You get so many big plays, they start to expect them," Karey said,
Stanley-Powers Lake definitely did something. Though Killdeer out-rushed the Blue Jays 193 to 60 in the first half, Stanley-Powers Lake answered by winning the rushing battle 60-50, paced by Johnson's 51 yards. He finished with 72 yards on 19 carries.
"In the second half, I thought we dominated the game," Stanley-Powers Lake coach Lyne Enget said. "I thought we matched up okay."
Wagner said the Blue Jays made the proper adjustments.
"They did a great job of taking the middle away," Wagner said. "They changed some things at halftime and made it difficult."
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Stanley-Powers Lake got on the board early when it stopped a Killdeer drive and marched down the field, scoring on junior quarterback Chris Nordloef's 18-yard touchdown pass to junior Zach Jarmin. The Blue Jays missed the two-point conversion.
Killdeer responded with a TD pass of its own on the ensuing drive as senior signal caller Mike Wagner found junior Blaine Pelton for a 34-yard strike. Senior Amos Buehner kicked the extra point to take a 7-6 lead. Buehner was also successful on his extra-point tries after Karey's touchdowns late in the first half.
Killdeer's defense came up big in the fourth quarter, stopping two long Stanley-Powers Lake drives with turnovers on consecutive possessions.
"We made the plays and got turnovers," Wagner said. "We had a couple guys banged up, so we weren't able to rotate as much, but their guys stayed in too."
"This was a good lesson for us."
