FOOTBALL: Indians back on top after sixth straight win

The Du Quoin Indians are officially back.

DHS's varsity football squad crushed Nashville on Friday night 55-16 to wrap up a 5-0 season in the Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference Mississippi Division and a spot in the IHSA Playoffs later this month.

Du Quoin rocked the Hornets for 55 straight points and the game's clock continued to run after Brenden Fred's 18-yard touchdown pass to Travis Chapman with 3:52 left in the second quarter made it 42-to-zip Indians.

By that time, Du Quoin had allowed just one first down to the Nashville offense, which picked up the majority of their 150 total net yards for the night in the lightly-contested fourth quarter.

"Things went well for us early, we were able to execute," said DHS head football coach Al Martin. "It's just a good overall team victory for us. It was a good half of football, a very good half of football."

After the Hornets punted it away on their opening possession, Shayne Baxter scored his first of two touchdowns on the very next play - a 56-yard run to make it 7-0 after Fred's kick.

Less than two minutes later, Nashville turned the ball over via fumble at their own 18-yard line, allowing Deeja Cole to make runs of 3 and 15 yards, the latter putting the Indians up 14-0 with 6:20 remaining in the opening quarter.

Another Nashville three-and-out was followed by another quick Du Quoin scoring drive. Jonah Spencer put the exclamation point on that possession with a 34-yard TD run.

The Indians starting defensive group continued to hold serve. Fred found Daulton Donoghue for a 23-yard touchdown pass moments into the second quarter to make it 28-0, then Baxter scored again from 17 yards out with 7:54 to go in the half.

"Things clicked pretty well," Martin admitted. "We charted a few plays that we wanted to run early. We had four or five plays down and we just went down the list, the kids were executing well. We were fortunate that the execution paid off and we were able to get some points on the board early."

The Senior Night win was the sixth straight victory for Du Quoin since an 0-2 start to this season, which followed up a 5-4 2011 when the Indians missed the postseason for the first time after 27 straight appearances.

"It means a lot to the kids, that was a goal for us, to win the conference (and make the playoffs)," said Martin. "We've worked very hard on a lot of different things, trying to build our defense and offense around our personnel, and I really commend our coaching staff and our players."

Baxter (6 carries, 111 yards, 2 TD), Cole (3-28, TD), Spencer (1-34, TD), Camden Youngman (6-82, TD), Kody Hess (4-57, TD), and Devin Harris (5-20) led Du Quon's rushing attack which amassed 345 yards on the ground.

Fred was 4-for-5 passing for 75 yards, completing throws to Baxter (1-27), Donoghue (1-23), Chapman (1-18) and Spencer (1-7).

Du Quoin (6-2) and Murphysboro (3-5) conclude the regular season in week nine.