CAPE GIRARDEAU — Saxony Lutheran may not celebrate a football homecoming yet, but Friday’s 35-7 victory over Doniphan at Southeast Missouri State’s Houck Stadium served as a homecoming of sorts for first-year coach O.J. Turner.
“It was pretty cool for a lot of reasons,” Turner said. “Probably one that was pretty cool for me is I played my four years in high school [at Houck Stadium]. Cape Central did not have a stadium at the time, so my freshman through senior year, I played at SEMO. And then, I went to SEMO and played four more years. So it was pretty darn cool to have those eight years that I played there and then to be able to coach a team, a varsity team there at SEMO.”
In addition, Turner’s son, Ozzie, is a freshman for the Crusaders.
“To coach him on the team at a field that I did high school and college on was pretty cool,” Turner said. “That’s special for me and it kind of brought back some pretty cool memories. I ended up really sharing that with the team of how cool it is to play at a college arena, be in their locker rooms and all those different things because there’s so few that they would really be able to go to college and play the game at that level.”
Saxony, in its first season of varsity play, faced Doniphan last season in a junior varsity matchup, a squeaker the Crusaders won 40-38. Turner said he wasn’t sure what to expect when the Crusaders squared up with the varsity Dons (1- 1).
“We brought our whole offensive line back,” Turner said. “We’ve got a lot of freshmen starting on our team, probably seven and a lot of those are on the defensive side of the ball. We were a little wary defensive-wise. Were we poised enough, mature enough, to be able to take care of business? We did not really know what to expect. You know Doniphan lost against us last year, but then they rolled through the rest of their schedule. We anticipated that they were going to be hungry and come ready to play.
“We anticipated a little bit of a closer game, and we were happy kind of when we got there with some of the adjustments we made and some things like that.”
All five of Saxony’s touchdowns came on passes from sophomore quarterback Kai McDowell, who connected with four different receivers — Bryce Gaebler twice, along with Zach Roth, Jaron Anderson, and Alan Rudd — on scoring passes.
“Kai always does a really good job being a captain, being a leader on our team,” Turner said. “He spread the ball really well. We’ve got a lot of good receivers out there, so he did a really good job. Offensively, we could really do a lot that we wanted to do. Our whole offensive line did a really good job. Landon Buchheit did a good job on both sides of the ball and I think Alex Buerck ran for 158 yards.”
As a self-proclaimed “defensive guy,” Turner, a former linebacker, also had plenty to say about the Crusaders’ defensive unit, specifically one play.
“We made a stop on the goal line where we ended up getting a fumble,” Turner said. “They got all the way down and made a stop there. I think that was a good eye opener to all my defensive kids that, ‘Hey, if you guys want it, you can get it.’ They’re on our 1-yard line. I called the time out, and I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to grow up tonight. I don’t care about what the score is. I don’t care about all those things. We’re going to be in a lot bigger games than this. And we got to learn how to make a stop. I was pretty excited. I put all my big kids in there. They got on all fours. Ball carrier came over and one of my safeties, Zach Roth, came and popped the kid pretty good. The ball popped out and we jumped on top of it.
“I think they’ll take that one home and understand that, later on, when we’re in a position like that, we can get the ball back and we can get some stops. That was a pretty big moment for me as far as the whole game of them growing up. That was awesome.”
This week, Saxony goes back on the road to face off with the Sparta (Ill.) Bulldogs, who are coming off a 42-12 loss to Marshall (Ill.). Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
