Kaneland cruises at LaSalle-Peru
LASALLE — Kaneland football coach Tom Fedderly wants opposing teams to kick the ball to Quinn Buschbacher.
La Salle-Peru chose to do so Friday night, and Buschbacher made the Cavaliers pay.
Buschbacher returned the opening kickoff 92 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown that set the tone of a 56-14 Kaneland victory at Howard Fellows Stadium in La Salle.
“What a way to start the game,” Fedderly said. “Anybody who wants to kick it to him, man, that’s great for us because that kid can make plays.”
The special teams’ heroics weren’t finished with Buschbacher’s return.
On the ensuing kickoff, the ball bounced off an L-P player and the Knights recovered.
Four plays later, Kaneland quarterback Drew David found Sean Carter for a 28-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 to put the Knights up 14-0 before L-P even touched the ball offensively.
“It was huge,” Buschbacher said about the opening special teams sequence. “It set us up for what happened today.”
The high octane Kaneland offense took care of the rest.
After L-P scored with 7:22 left in the first quarter, Kaneland sophomore Jesse Balluff broke through the Cavalier line on the first play and sprinted 73 yards for a touchdown.
David tossed three more touchdown passes in the first half, including a 72-yard screen pass to Buschbacher that began with 19.1 seconds left in the half and ended with no time on the clock and Kaneland up 42-14.
The score came immediately after L-P pulled within three touchdowns on a 37-yard pass from Zack Cinotto to Ty Jakse.
“What an answer,” Fedderly said. “We had some guys down field blocking. I don’t know if he was touched. They scored, and that’s what we keep saying, we want to answer when they score. What a play. What a playmaker Quinn is.”
David added one more touchdown pass in the second half and Balluff scored on an 11-yard run to start the continuous clock with 2:24 left in the third quarter.
The Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference crossover victory puts the Knights at 4-0 entering East Division play next Friday against Rochelle in Maple Park.
“We wanted to come out here and get a win right before conference started,” Buschbacher said. “It sets us on that tempo we’re going to carry on through the conference season.”