Prep Football: Harrisburg blanks Bearcats to stay perfect
Tysen Satterfield scored two touchdowns as Harrisburg rolled to a 28-0 win over Christopher-Zeigler-Royalton Friday night at Taylor Field.
Originally, Harrisburg was supposed to play Du Quoin, however the Indians on Wednesday went into a quarantine protocol and C-Z-R was dealing with the same issue after Hamilton County paused its athletic programs.
Despite the short notice, Bulldogs head coach Matt Griffith complimented his group on its effort.
"We were preparing for DuQuoin all the way up to Wednesday and all of the sudden we got the call. Obviously it took us about five seconds talking between coaches and the team that we were looking for someone to play," Griffith said. "This team said 'Coach, we haven't earned a win so we can't take a win so we have to get back out there and keep working.' With the ups and downs and the craziness of what's going on, these kids adapted, overcame and we played well."
Satterfield, who has four touchdowns in two games, put Harrisburg on the board with 4:37 in the first quarter.
Before halftime, facing a 3rd-and-27 situation from the 31 yard line, Ben Gulley hooked up with Ross Rider for the touchdown strike to give Harrisburg a 15-0 lead at the half.
In the third quarter, Satterfield scored the second of his two TD's, this one from 35 yards out and in the fourth, Bryant Lester, who led Harrisburg with 115 yards on 28 carries, scored from three yards out.
The Bulldogs (2-0) rushed for 241 yards and passed for 68.
Satterfield had 64 yards rushing on five carries and caught one pass for 20 yards. Rider accounted for 21 yards on five carries. Riley King racked up 19 yards on one carry and had one catch for 10 yards.
Griffith also tipped his hat to the Bearcats (0-2), who could have taken the forfeit win after the Hamilton County-COVID situation, but instead chose to play.
"We knew coming in that it was going to be a dogfight," Griffith added. "Those (C-Z-R) kids don't just lay down and let something happen to them. They're going to come in every single game you play them. We watched the film on them, they're hard-nosed kids. They showed it tonight and gave us fits in the middle. We were stopping us when we wanted to run so we had to draw the line in the sand and get after it. They were in the same situation - they could have had a forfeit win, but they wanted to come into town and play us so we loved it."
Harrisburg has now played two programs in Cerro Gordo (1A) and C-Z-R (2A) and have outscored them 62-6. The Bulldogs welcome Salem (1-1) to Taylor Field Friday. The Wildcats lost the season opener to Centralia 35-28, but bounced back to beat Marquette Catholic 40-21 this past Friday.
Spyder Dann covers prep and college sports for the Southern Illinois LOCAL Media Group. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.