Statistics can be sometimes deceiving.

That would have been the case Thursday night as Dowagiac throttled visiting South Haven 41-14 in a game that was a lot closer than the final score indicates.

In the end, Dowagiac has the victory and South Haven went home wondering what could have been.

A short field much of the night turned into a lot of easy scoring opportunities for the Chieftains offense. While not always efficient at times, Dowagiac can be proud of the fact that it capitalized on its chances.

Special teams were anything but as it cost the Rams at least four touchdowns, including two in the opening 12 minutes of play that set the tone for the rest of the evening.

A pair of poorly snapped balls on punts led to a couple of touchdowns for Dowagiac’s Brendon Murray — one on the ground and one through the air.

Murray’s first touchdown came on a 5-yard run following a bad snap that South Haven punter Christian Davis had to fall on when the ball sailed over his head.

Another poor center to punter exchange on South Haven’s next possession gave Dowagiac good field position again and Murray hauled in a 6-yard pass from Brett Scanlon, who kicked the extra point to make it 14-0.

South Haven wouldn’t score in the first quarter, but the Rams got on the board early in the second as Caprice Thomas caught the first of two long touchdown passes to get South Haven within a touchdown of the Chieftains.

Marquiz Dixon threw a strike to Thomas, who raced 29-yards to the end zone to but the Dowagiac lead in half.

The Chieftains (1-0) would get shut out in the second quarter, but still held on to a 14-7 lead at halftime.

It didn’t take long for that lead to increase.

Dontel Highsmith, who helped lead Dowagiac to the Class B state semifinals in basketball last March, took the second half kickoff and went virtually untouched 88 yards for the touchdown. Scanlon’s kick gave the Chieftains three-touchdown advantage and all but iced the game.

Derek Stark added a 7-yard run in the third quarter to make it 28-7 before DJ Hunt, who despite being injuried in the first half, came back in the final 24 minutes and put on a show at running back.

Hunt finished the game with 124 yards on just six carries and scored on a 25-yard run in which he broke about six tackles and spun out of a couple of those to score and make it 34-7 after the extra point attempt failed.

Thomas gave South Haven fans one more thing to cheer about when he hauled in an 85-yard pass from Dixon. Dixon ended up the night throwing for 193 yards and two touchdowns. Thomas caught six of those passes for 183 yards.

Hunt would score one more time in the fourth quarter on a 6-yard run to cap the scoring.

Dowagiac finished the night with 282 yards in total offense, of which, 262 came on the ground. South Haven finished with 240 yards in total offense.

“We may have won the game, but we have a lot to work on,” Dowagiac coach Mike Stanger said. “We are young with only seven seniors. We got nine guys who had varsity experience before tonight. “Offensively they (South Haven) stacked the box and threw the house at us. We didn’t always got a good job of picking up the blitz. We tried to take some shots on some fades and some seams. We dropped a few. A few were incomplete and we got sacked a few times. And that put us in some tough situations.

“I thought our defense played pretty well. Other than a couple of big plays, I thought we stoned them and I thought we got after them. In the third quarter we got a little bit dull and they had some runs and give them credit, they were running off tackle and inside our defensive end. Once we made that adjustment and then we stoned them and forced a fumble down at the goal line. We have some things to clean up, but I thought some of our key guys played like key guys. So we will take the W and go on to next week. But we have to improve.”

South Haven 0 7 7 0 – 14

Dowagiac 14 0 20 7 – 41

D – Murray 5 run (Scanlon kick)

D – Murray 6 pass from Scanlon (Scanlon kick)

SH – Caprice Thomas 20 pass from Marquiz Dixon (Travis Stricklin kick)

D – Dontel Highsmith 88 kickoff return (Scanlon kick)

D – Derek Stark 7 run (Scanlon kick)

D – DJ Hunt 25 run (kick fails)

SH – Thomas 85 pass from Dixon (Stricklin kick)

D – Hunt 6 run (Scanlon kick)