JACKSON — It was a season of firsts for the Saxony Lutheran Crusaders varsity football team. That’s not surprising, considering it was the school’s first-ever.
In their first game on Aug. 29, sophomore quarterback Kai McDowell made his mark in the school history book, scoring the team’s first-ever touchdown in a 54-18 victory on the road — both firsts — over Veritas Christian Academy.
Their first home game — at Houck Stadium in Cape Girardeau — was also a victory, with the team topping Doniphan 35-7. Their first loss came in Week 3 as they fell 36-30 at Sparta, Ill., and they christened newly completed Bennett Memorial Stadium on Oct. 17 with a 42-28 victory over Massac County, Ill.
In the end, their first season was a little short for the Crusaders (4-5), who played just eight games in the regular season before receiving the second seed in the Class 1, District 1 playoffs and falling 50-21 to third-seeded Hayti in the second round.
Still, first-year coach O.J. Turner called it a successful season.
“When we first started this, I promised my parents and everybody that we’re going to be able to play a home game,” Turner said. “We’re going to have an awesome place to play, and we’re going to build a foundation that will live for a very long time. That’s what we did.”
It also marked the beginning of what Turner hopes will become a long-lasting pattern of success.
“If you really think about our youth program that we got put together this year, with our varsity and JV playing full schedules and just foundationally what we’ve done as far as coaching staff and getting our team together, it’s quite impressive what we’ve done in one year,” Turner said.
As for his current players, Turner said they showed a lot of growth during their inaugural season and that he’s eager to see what the next one will bring.
“If you go and look at our team, we look like a team that’s been playing for a long time,” Turner said. “That’s impressive, and we’re super excited that we’re able to build a foundation, something that we can really build onto.”
The Crusaders finished the season with 3,926 yards of total offense, averaging 436.2 per game, and scored 320 points, an average of 35.6 per game. Their offensive efforts yielded 1,707 yards rushing and 2,219 passing, despite some of his players being what Turner described as “a little light in the britches” when it comes to size.
McDowell completed 175-of-272 passing attempts on the season for 2,223 yards and 18 touchdowns — split among eight different receivers — while rushing for 536 yards and 10 touchdowns 81 carries to lead Saxony Lutheran’s offense. Senior running back Alex Buerck rushed for 939 yards and 12 touchdowns on 151 carries and caught 24 passes for 319 yards and 2 touchdowns.
As for the rest of the receiving corps, Ozzie Turner was 39-511 with 2 touchdowns, Bryce Gaebler was 48-401 with 4 touchdowns, Madden Cortez was 22-358 with 1 touchdown, Jaron Anderson was 17-252 with 1 touchdown, Zach Roth was 22-311 with 4 touchdowns, Tucker Teague was 4-130 with 2 touchdowns, and Alan Rudd was 6-57 with 2 touchdowns.
Several members of the offense — particularly among the linemen — are seniors, which will leave Turner with some holes to fill next season.
“Pretty much our whole offensive line, except Landon Buchheit, were seniors,” Turner said. “That’s a spot that obviously did very well this year. We’ll have to rebuild those young kids and put them in positions that maybe they’re not comfortable with now, but after another year, another 20 pounds, they’ll really be able to fill those spots. Then our running back, Alex Buerck, who had an unbelievable year, really close to a thousand yards rushing, he’ll be a kid that we’ve got to replace, and it will be hard replacing that leadership.”
As for the defense, Turner said he doesn’t expect much difficulty there, as most of the defensive players were underclassmen, who held opponents to an average of 27.8 points per game, forcing 11 fumbles, recovering 14 and pulling in 6 interceptions.
“What I’ve seen this season is what I expected,” Turner said. “I wanted to make sure that we got foundationally where we wanted to be. It was a lot for one year. There are a lot of small things you don’t think about, and it was a lot more than I thought, but I’m super excited that we were able to do it and super excited we’re going to build on it.”
Turner also expressed his thanks to everyone involved in getting the Crusaders’ program off the ground, from the administration to the coaches and players, as well as the parents and fans.
“We’re super excited,” Turner said. “I would like to say just a huge thank you to our fan base, which is super broad and awesome. Our parents ran this program this year for the first year, like they’ve been doing it for a long time, and a big shout out to our fan base.”
