David tosses 2 TDs in Kaneland’s win

Kaneland had never played a regular-season game at Sterling before, but the Knights made themselves right at home in Roscoe Eades Stadium.

Kaneland scored on 5 of 6 first-half possessions on the way to routing the Golden Warriors, 48-7 in a Northern Illinois Big 12 crossover.

Drew David completed 19 of 26 passes for 231 yards and 2 touchdowns, and Nate Dyer run for a 95 yards and three scores as the Knights won their 31st consecutive regular-season game.

Dyer carried most of the load after tailback Jesse Balluff went out with an injury in the first quarter.

“That’s what we strive for, if a man goes down we’ve got a second man in to cover for our team,” said Dyer.

Kaneland set the tone for the evening by taking the opening kickoff and marching 81 yards for a score. David completed 6 of 7 passes on the drive, then took it in himself from a yard out.

“The line always does a great job of blocking,” said David. “They threw a different coverage at us than we were expecting, so I don’t know if it confused us a little bit, but we’ve got guys who can always make plays. That’s just what they did tonight.”

The Knights never broke a big play, but didn’t need to, gaining yardage in sizeable chunks throughout the night.

Two more methodical drives made it 20-0. David passed to Connor Fedderly for a score, and Dyer ran 10 yards on the first play of the second quarter for the other.

Defensively, the Knights held Sterling to 81 total yards, including 28 rushing yards on 22 attempts. They sacked Warrior quarterback Bryant Lilly twice, and Isaac Swithers had an interception.

It was the first loss of the season for Sterling, which had piled up 77 points in its 2 victories.

After Sterling got on the board, the Knights added 2 more touchdowns before halftime. They continued the onslaught in the third quarter with another pair of scores. With the clock running continuously and backups in the game on both sides, the fourth quarter was scoreless.