The night belonged to Chieftains senior Bevyn Dennis who led Riverdale to a 27-22 win over Pecatonica/Argyle in a Six Rivers battle Friday.
Dennis ran for three touchdowns and threw for one more. He also led the defense with 10 tackles, nine of them solo stops. He passed for 122 yards on seven of 17 accuracy and teamed with Owen Blakenship for the passing tally. He ran for 108 yards on 21 carries, crossing the scoring stripe three times.
Dennis split the ball carrying wi sophomore Landon Kinyon who added 27 yards on 11 tries. Blakenship, Eli Campbell and Kinyon grabbed three, three and one pass from Dennis.
Campbell kicked three extra points. “He’s a handful,”P/A coach Preston Knutson said. “We had a better second half but we need to up our team tackling and get more hard to the ball carrier.”
Dennis was not the only quarterback to shine in the match-up. P/A signal caller Martin Anderson ran for one touchdown and passed for another. He also handed off to Brock Erickson for a third P/A score.
Anderson ran for 99 yards on 12 carries with Erickson turning the turf for 162 on 11 lugs.
Anderson nailed Luke Leonard with the scoring pass.
Leonard, Bo Stateler and Erickson all grabbed a pair of passes from Anderson with Mike Helfvogt catching one.
Pec/Argyle rushed for 261 yards and passed for 109. Leonard kicked a pair of extra points and also ran in for two.
Layton Gruenenfelder, Stateler and Jonah Hanson all had nine tackles with Charlie Krebs contributing eight. Erickson stoped the most with 10. Hanson had a tackle for loss.
There were a few glitches that made the difference in the outcome.
Said Knutson, “We unfortunately gave up the ball three imes and you just can’t do that against good teams. We have to get out of our own way at times with penalties and turnovers.”
Overall play was good when the miscues are not figured in, the coach felt.
“Both sides of the ball had success. Defense rallied big time in the second half and the offense responded well. We went up by one with six minutes left but they made one more big play than us,” said Knutson.
Moving forward Knutson will be helping the P/A co-op handling adversity better.
Powerful Black Hawk/Warren will test P/A this week.
“We expect a very disciplined and physical opponent,” Knutson said.