The Xavier Saints football train just keeps rolling, with two more wins in the past two weeks taking their unbeaten streak up to 31 and aiming towards a pretty darn significant matchup with district foe Western Dubuque on October 11.
Two weeks ago West Delaware came to town. The Hawks are one of the consistently strong Class 3A programs in eastern Iowa, with a long string of playoff appearances that was snapped with an off year last season. WD started this year with a surprising two-point loss to Dubuque Wahlert, but had won the next two handily. Stat-wise, the defensive numbers shown by the Hawks in the first three weeks were almost identical to Xavier's (although Xavier had played a stronger schedule, with their opponents having a combined record of 4-5 compared to WD's opponents at 1-8).
As expected, Xavier's defense was pretty much on lockdown against West Delaware. The Hawks gained only 12 yards passing while picking up 101 on the ground - however, 51 of those 101 yards came on one play, a breakaway run by Wyatt Voelker for the Hawks' first TD. West Delaware's second score came after a muffed punt gave them the ball at the Xavier 20, and then 23 more rushing yards came on Jared Voss' TD run (so two scoring plays accounted for 74 yards rushing ... other than that, West Delaware ran 30 times for 27 yards - take away the two TDs and the Hawks averaged one yard per play).
Xavier's offense got some big plays, too. In the first quarter Kaiden Cuevas got behind the secondary and Tyler DuPont found him for a 63-yard score. Another Saints TD came after West Delaware muffed a punt, but then Xavier also got second-quarter scoring passes of 38 and 39 yards (a lot of wide-open room in the Hawk secondary) for a 28-6 Saints lead. Not much happened but defense in the second half until that late muffed punt, and the final score was 28-12.
On to district play, and the Maquoketa Cardinals. Maquoketa started 2-0, their best start in several years, but then dropped games to a powerful Independence team and a so-so Mount Vernon squad to come in at 2-2. The Cardinals have a pretty good ground game, but their defensive numbers showed them to be pretty weak on that side of the ball.
Xavier took advantage, rolling up a school-record 619 yards of total offense and reaching the end zone seven times in a 52-20 victory. It could have been even worse, as Carter Diebold missed short field goals right before halftime and again on the first drive of the third quarter. DuPont had 333 yards passing and TD throws to Tyler Wilken (77 and 27 yards), Cuevas (35 yards) and Mac Mahurin (14 yards). Cuevas ran for two more scores, and both he and Jack Lux ended with over 100 yards rushing.
Maquoketa, like West Delaware, was able to hit some big plays to get their points. Kannon Coakley threw two long TD passes to Caiden Atienza (69 and 31 yards) and Connor Becker broke an 85-yard run for another score ... but again, take away those three long plays and the Cardinals only had 87 yards of offense (just over 2 yards per play, without those three big ones).
Xavier's defense continues to be solid, even with that propensity to give up the long touchdown (they still rank tops in the district allowing about 185 total yards per game, less than 70 yards per game rushing), and the explosion against Maquoketa vaulted the Saints to the top offense in the district as well (388 yards per game, over 200 yards rushing).
This Friday, it's a trip to the Rock Bowl at Loras College to take on Dubuque Wahlert. The Golden Eagles, with a new coach coming from NCAA Division II Lindenwood, had that solid close win over West Delaware to open the season, then blew out Clinton for their second win - but they also have losses to Davenport Assumption, Central DeWitt, and Western Dubuque. Wahlert has the district's number two rushing offense, but they don't throw the ball very well and have only an average defense.
Which means, for you onlookers, that the October 11 matchup between Xavier and Western Dubuque will most likely decide the District 4 champion, with the winner almost certainly at home for the first round playoff game while the loser would have to go on the road. Xavier hasn't been on the road for a playoff game (except for the Dome) since 2011, and never as a 3A team (the Saints have been district champions all five years in 3A).
But first - Wahlert.
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