Cassopolis quarterback Dwayne Morgan turns to hand the ball off Friday night against Edwardsburg. The Eddies blanked the Rangers 21-0 in a Lakeland Conference showdown. (Vigilant/Argus photo/KELLY SWEENEY)

By JEFF FISHER

Vigilant/Argus

Edwardsburg took little time in taking a two-touchdown lead over arch rival Cassopolis Friday night in the opening game of the Lakeland Conference season.

The Eddies jumped out to 14-0 lead in 68 seconds when Adam Kendall took the game’s opening kickoff 92-yards, then after recovering a fumble, one of four Ranger fumbles on the night, on the kickoff at the Ranger 36-yard line, Lee Williamson went 32-yards for a score.

The Rangers trailed 14-0 at half.

Edwardsburg (4-0) would score later in the third quarter, on a 6-yard run by Kendall, as the Eddies beat Cassopolis 21-0 to record their second shutout of the season.

The victory avenged a 50-37 loss to the Rangers last season.

“We didn’t do ourselves any favors and when you play against a good football team you can’t come out and make those mistakes,” Cass coach Bernard Thomas said. “They are a good football team, but I thought our kids held tough and when we fell behind they could have given up, but they hung in there and fought right down to the end. There was no quit in them and I am very proud of them.”

“They (Edwardsburg) didn’t give us many opportunities with the football and that offense (wing-T) burns up a lot of clock and uses a lot of time,” added Thomas.

The Eddies’ ground game rushed for 280 yards against the Rangers’ 54, while the defense held the hosts to five first downs for the game-3 in the second half while the Rangers did not cross into the Eddies’ territory the entire first quarter.

“The hitting on both sides of the ball was phenomenal, the kids were hitting hard. It was a solid football game. We did a great job of shutting them down. I was pleased with the toughness,” Eddies coach Kevin Bartz said.

“We were here last year and they put 50 points on the board and we said at the beginning of practice this week that we want to cut their score in half and by that we meant that we wanted to take the five off the front and leave the zero at the end, defensively a terrific job,” Bartz added.

Kendall led the Eddies with 81 yards, followed by Austin Stinett’s 70, Lee Williamson and Michael Kempton each with 64 yards. As a team, the Eddies have 1,279 yards on the ground and have outscored their opponents 116-19.

“Most of those guys play defense, but we put them on offense once in a while to carry the ball and get some yards. We don’t have anybody that gets a lot of carries and we are not going to have too many 1,000 yard rushers,” added Bartz.

Dominic Razzano was credited with eight tackles.

Evan Brown led the Rangers (3-1) with 51 yards on eight carries while teammate Tommy First grabed three catches for 28 yards.

Cass was without it’s leading rusher in Marcus Ruff, who did play defensively, despite a shoulder injury.

“He gave us all he had defensively. Any time you got a hammer that is not able to hammer, it is going to hurt you,” added Thomas on his injured fullback/outside linebacker.

“The win is huge. To be sitting at 4-0 sets things up for a big game next week (against Buchanan). Wouldn’t want to back in with a loss and face the Bucks at this point in time so we have a good match-up coming up,” concluded Bartz.

Both teams return to Lakeland play Friday, as the Eddies host Buchanan and Cassopolis hosts Berrien Springs.

Edwardsburg 14 0 7 0 – 21

Cassopolis 0 0 0 0 – 0

E – Adam Kendall 95 kick return (Jeff Roberson kick)

E – Lee Williams 32 run (Roberson kick)

E – Kendall 6 run (Roberson kick)