Kaneland cruises at Rochelle

Just about everything has been going right for the Kaneland football team this fall.

The positive momentum continued in the Knights' Northern Illinois Big 12 East division opener at Rochelle on Friday.

Kaneland's offense found the end zone on its opening drive and its defense forced a fumble on Rochelle's initial drive to set up another touchdown as Kaneland rolled to a 35-8 victory.

"Coming up here to Rochelle and holding them to 8 points, that's something we haven't done before," Kaneland coach Tom Fedderly said. "Right now the kids are concerned with the injuries. I didn't see too many smiles, but they'll be fine."

The only thing that didn't go right for the Knights were the injuries, as Kyle Davidson, Taylor Andrews and Quinn Buschbacher all were banged up in the contest, although Buschbacher returned to action.

It was Buschbacher who ignited the Knights during the opening kickoff with a nice return. The Knights converted three first downs on the drive before Buschbacher scored on an 8-yard run.

"It's always good to get off to a fast start with a good kick return," Buschbacher said. "Getting the lead right off the bat like that was just great."

Rochelle (3-2, 0-1) found some success with its Wing-T but coughed the ball up. Kaneland junior Sean Carter recovered to set up a drive that resulted in a 1-yard touchdown run by Blake Serpa to put the Knights ahead 14-0 with 4:08 remaining in the opening quarter.

"That was huge to get a start like that," Fedderly said. "We have a lot of weapons on offense and we feel with this group and the line coming together that we can be pretty balanced."

The Knights entered the game averaging 196.7 yards rushing per game and 196 yards passing per game, which is about as balanced as a team can be.

Kaneland (5-0, 1-0) placekicker Matt Rodriguez missed a 37-yard field goal in the first half but the Knights still found the end zone on two separate occasions in the second quarter to go ahead 28-0 at halftime.

Serpa blocked a punt to give the Knights great field position to ultimately set up his 18-yard touchdown run and quarterback Joe Camiliere connected with Buschbacher on a 17-yard strike with 29.7 seconds remaining in the first half.

Rochelle proved that it isn't the type of the team that's going to quit as the Hubs opened the third quarter wit a 36-yard touchdown run by Joshua Bernardin with 7:54 remaining. But the Hubs, who found success on the ground at times, turned the ball over twice after scoring their lone touchdown and committed four turnovers in the game.

"We shut their backs down which was what we talked about doing all week," Serpa said. "I think we did well in stopping them. Of course there were some spots that we can clean up and we still need to get that shutout. One touchdown is good but Coach Thorgie (defensive coordinator Joe Thorgesen) always stresses the shutout."

Kaneland concluded its scoring midway through the final quarter when Camiliere connected on a 5-yard pass to Carter.