WARDSVILLE, Mo. - This one was over early.
The Blair Oaks Falcons scored seven times in the first quarter - including two defensive touchdowns in the first minute and a half - and steamrolled the Owensville Dutchmen 55-13 on Friday night.
Starts don't get much better than the one the Falcons had.
After two plays for the Dutchmen went nowhere, Mikel Drehle intercepted a pass and took it back 40 yards for a touchdown.
Owensville got the ball back and on the first play, Blair Oaks stripped the ball and Caleb Bischoff scooped it up and raced 20 yards for a touchdown.
After just 84 seconds of game time, the Falcons had a 14-0 lead.
"We started fast," Blair Oaks coach Brad Drehle said. "That's what we wanted to do, we wanted to come out there and get after them. Owensville is a team that's improved, but they're still struggling and we didn't want to give them any life."
On Owensville's second play of its third possession, the Dutchmen threw another interception. Mikel Drehle was the culprit again, as he leapt high into the air to come down with his second pick.
The Blair Oaks offense finally got a chance to get involved and four plays later, Jordan Hair hit Haydn Lock with a 13-yard touchdown pass.
After another defensive stop, Blair Oaks got a 4-yard touchdown run by Bischoff and it was 26-0 with 6:02 left in the first quarter.
Hair got two more touchdown passes on the Falcons' next two possessions - a 42-yarder to Lock and a 49-yarder to C.J. Closser.
The Falcons' final points of the first quarter - which made it a staggering 42-0 - came when Owensville snapped the ball over the head of its punter and out of the end zone for a safety.
"Our kids were able to come out and get something going quick," Brad Drehle said.
Blair Oaks added two scores in the second quarter, a 30-yard touchdown pass from Hair to Mikel Drehle and a 69-yard pass from Jake VanRonzelen to Adam Schell.
That made it 55-0 at halftime, as the Falcons' defense dominated the Dutchmen. Owensville ran 33 offensive plays for a minus-19 yards. Included in that were 28 rushes and five passes that failed to find an Owensville player.
"I thought we did a lot better job getting penetration, getting in the gaps, and I thought we tackled a lot better (than last week's opener)," Brad Drehle said. "We're better than we were last week and hopefully next week we can be a little bit better."
Blair Oaks (1-1) travels Friday to Hallsville.