FOOTBALL: Indians blank Sparta 49-0
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Du Quoin's defense held Sparta to just 12 total rushing yards in their second straight shutout and the offense ran for 361 yards as the Indians rolled to a 49-0 domination of the Bulldogs on Friday night at Van Metre Field.
The Bulldogs achieved only four first downs in the first half, all coming on the same series and two coming thanks to Du Quoin penalties.
"They did another good job," said Indians' head coach Al Martin of his team's defense. "We feel like (the defense) is a credit to what they do during the week. They practice hard during the week, we try to prepare them hard."
"We just want to get some wins. Hopefully we can continue (to succeed) in our conference, it's not going to be easy. Each week's a tough week, we just take it one week at a time."
Karson Hoffman picked off his fourth pass of the season on the Bulldogs' opening drive at the Indians' 37-yard line. After the turnover, Sam Gossett connected with James Williams down to the Sparta 42-yard line before keeping it on an option play a few moments later for a 16-yard gain down to the Bulldogs' 18.
"We have been running (Seth) Baxter a lot the last couple weeks," Marin said. "We felt like we needed to take some of the pressure away from him so we started trying to spread the game out a little bit more just to stretch their defense out and open things up for Seth inside."
Facing a fourth down and four, Gossett pitched to Aaron Smith who was taken down out of bounds with a horse collar tackle at the Sparta four yard line. The resulting penalty moved the ball to the two where Baxter powered through for the game's first points, capping off a 63-yard drive.
A three-and-out by the Bulldogs was followed by a bad punt that rolled out of bounds at the Sparta 38, and on the third play of the drive Baxter cut outside around solid blocking for a 19-yard touchdown run and a 14-0 Indians lead.
Sparta finally got the ball moving offensively during their third possession on the arm of quarterback Darius Jackson, but Hoffman would intercept him again for his team-leading fifth pick of the season, taking it down in the end zone for a touchback. Jerel Holmes and Kenny Kabat applied heavy pressure to force the ill-advised pass.
Smith broke through the middle for a 38-yard gain on the next play, and Baxter took Du Quoin down to the Bulldogs' 15-yard line with a 25-yard scamper.
Smith ran over a defender down to the 7, and Gossett dove in with the keeper for another Indians' touchdown on the following play to complete the 80-yard drive in just over two minutes. Du Quoin led 21-0 after the extra point with 5:53 remaining in the second quarter.
Sparta would go nowhere in three plays and again punted it away, leaving the Indians a short field to work with at the Bulldogs' 45.
Baxter and Smith went back to work, with Baxter going 20 yards on two carries on the drive and Smith adding 18 yards of his own, including a fancy cut for an 8-yard touchdown run that put Du Quoin on top 28-0 with 2:11 left in the first half.
The Indians were far from finished, tacking on a Gossett touchdown pass to Brandon Williams just before the half, and bringing on the continuous clock early in the third quarter with Dillon Beltz's 3-yard touchdown run.
Shane Baxter added a 33-yard touchdown late in the game to complete the scoring.
"The kids are improving," Martin said. "We just keep finding more players, we have a lot of kids working hard and want to play and we feel like we're finding more places to put our kids on the field to help us out. That's something that's important to us, getting a lot of kids out there on the field."
Se. Baxter led a strong running game with 98 yards on just 8 carries for Du Quoin, Smith had 10 carries for 96 yards, Sh. Baxter 2-54, Gossett 3-35, Chaz Bland 5-25, and Beltz 6-15.
"Being in kind of a wing formation we have three running backs invovled, and these past couple years we've more or less just had two running backs," commented Martin. "But now we have three running backs and it keeps things a little more balanced."
Gossett was 5-for-8 passing with 51 yards before giving way to Brenden Fred late in the contest. Fred completed 1-of-2 passes for 4 yards.
The Indians (3-1, 1-0) meet up with an old playoff rival in the Carterville Lions in week five, Du Quoin's homecoming contest for 2010.
"There's been some great, exciting games with Carterville," said Martin. "You just kind of feel like it's a playoff game coming up, that's the kind of excitement I think this game will bring.
Carterville (3-1, 0-1) is coming off a loss in their first ever River-to-River conference game, a 28-6 defeat at the hand of Nashville (3-1, 1-0) this past week.
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