WARDSVILLE, Mo. - Football coaches preach defense wins championships.
As it turns out, defense has put the Blair Oaks Falcons in position to seek another Tri-County Conference championship.
The Falcons held the Eldon Mustangs - who were averaging 395 rushing yards and 43.7 points per game entering Friday's contest - to just 150 yards rushing. In a battle of two state-ranked teams, No. 2 Blair Oaks emerged with a 32-12 win against No. 7 Eldon at the Falcon Athletic Complex.
Eldon averaged just 3.1 yards per rushing attempt. The Mustangs averaged 6.7 yards per carry in their first three games.
"If you're going to be a good team, you've got to be able to play some defense," Walker said. "I thought our kids did a good job of matching up on their buck (sweep) and their bootleg and their iso. We gave up some yards, but we also did a good job of getting them behind the chains every now and again."
Eldon had 13 rushing attempts that did not get past the line of scrimmage, and more than 60 percent of its yards came on its two scoring drives.
The Mustangs attempted just 10 pass plays through the first three games. Quarterback Dawson Brandt attempted 10 passes Friday against the Falcons, completing just two of them.
Blair Oaks benefited from some drops downfield, as well as an interception by Ben Thomas that shut the door on Eldon with less than five minutes to play.
"First, good on the secondary for reading their keys," Walker said. "Second, good on both (Braydan Pritchett) and Benner, who were defending and battling for the ball.
"It was fortunate that we came down with it, but that's a function of playing hard. Sometimes you get the bounces you need."
Blair Oaks also prevented the big plays against Eldon. The Mustangs had just five plays for 10 yards or more, the longest going for 21 yards.
"Eldon's difficult to defend in the sense that they're going to run, run, run," Walker said. "Then they have some really nice play-action passes off their offensive action. Our kids did a really good job of reading their keys, and what I liked most about our defense was that we gave up 12 points, but we made them earn it. We didn't give them an easy 12 via a big play."
Instead, the big plays on offense are what pushed Blair Oaks over the top.
Rather than running out the clock to end the first half, quarterback Cade Stockman - making his first career start and only a freshman - found Marcus Edler on a slant route for a 71-yard touchdown with :05.6 left to give Blair Oaks a 12-6 lead at halftime.
"I thought that young man did a great job," Eldon coach Shannon Jolley said of Stockman, who started in place of an injured Nolan Hair. "They're still a fantastic team, and no team is just one person. I'm sure a lot of those other kids on Blair Oaks understood they're just as important as the whole."
Stockman's other big pass play broke a Blair Oaks record. He found Ethan Luebbering on a go route near the Falcons' 25-yard line, and Luebbering outran the Mustangs' secondary for the next 75 yards on a 97-yard score late in the third quarter to extend the lead to 18-6.
The previous Blair Oaks record for the longest passing touchdown was 92 yards, set by Blake McPheeters and Justin Ortmeyer in 2000.
Stockman finished 10-of-25 for 235 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.
"Cade did exactly what we wanted him to do," Walker said. "He was composed and we knew he had some ability to throw the football.
"That was a big play, but we work on that play every single day in practice. Cade's probably thrown it 100 times."
Riley Lentz added 110 yards rushing - his second-straight 100-yard game - on 18 carries and Pritchett finished with 105 total yards of offense (56 yards receiving, 49 yards rushing).
"When your starting quarterback goes down and it's a kid that's a central focus of the offense, that's tough to overcome," Walker said. "We had talked all week about how we still have a lot of weapons offensively, and the most important thing you can do is to do your job."
Blair Oaks (4-0, 2-0 Tri-County) will go on the road Friday to play at Hallsville (3-1, 1-1 Tri-County). The Indians went on the road Friday to knock off Southern Boone 28-24.
School of the Osage (3-1, 2-0 Tri-County) is the only other unbeaten team in conference play with five games to go.
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Correction
The Blair Oaks player of the week in Friday's Goal Lines was incorrectly identified in the mugshot.
Running back Riley Lentz kept the Falcons going on the scoreboard in their 34-14 win against the Versailles Tigers. Lentz rushed for career-highs of 24 carries for 141 yards and four touchdowns.
Through four games this season, Lentz leads the Falcons with 375 yards rushing, averaging 5.3 yards per carry, with seven touchdowns. He also has two catches for 92 yards.