Easy does it, according to Kennedy Mountain Man Dalles Jacobus.

The 6-foot-2, 260-pound senior lineman and his defensive mates held Cedar Falls to 19 yards rushing (two in the second half) as they raised their record to 8-0 Friday night at Kingston Stadium.

“It’s easy when you’ve got all 11 guys doing what they’re supposed to be doing and playing at 100 percent the whole time,” Jacobus said in the locker room following the 21-7 win.

“If you’ve got a weakness here or there, they can attack that. But we don’t have any weak spots. And we pride ourselves on flying to the ball.”

Cougar coach Brian White, who can now claim a district championship in only his second year, couldn’t agree more.

“That was just a phenomenal defensive effort,” said White, a Kennedy assistant for nine years before taking over. “And I’m an old defense guy, so I can appreciate it. These kids just play fast on the defensive side.

“And that was a quality team we played tonight. They are a tough team and we knew they’d give us everything and more.”

On this night, though, the Tigers’ best was not nearly enough.

Besides the miniscule rushing yardage, they had 100 yards passing. But almost all of that came in their one desperation touchdown drive in the fourth quarter against the Cougars.

Trailing 21-0 when 9:33 left, Cedar Falls quarterback Taylen Alexander took his team 92 yards by completing six of seven passes (to go with only four more completions the rest of the game) in a little over two minutes.

“Their touchdown was on me,” White said. “Coach (Kyle) Knock wanted to call timeout, and I wasn't paying attention. If it wouldn’t have been for my mistake, we might have had a shutout.”

The Cougar offense, meanwhile was characteristically efficient under the direction of steady junior quarterback Nick Duehr. Out of 368 yards in total offense, 285 came on the ground.

Duehr himself picked up 65 yards with one scamper on Kennedy’s very first possession when he turned a broken play into a long gain. He tossed a touchdown pass to Zach DeMaris two plays later.

The Cougars scored once more in both the second and third quarters, each of them on short runs by the indomitable Tyler Dralle. After going over 2,000 yards for his career last week, the senior tailback lugged the ball 38 times Friday night and added 192 yards to his resume.

“He’s a horse,” White said of the 5-foot-10, 180-pound wrecking ball. “He always wants the ball. He’s a tough kid, too.

“He delivers hits even when he’s tackled. He never goes backwards.”

Seemingly fresh as a daisy after yet another night of pounding, Dralle downplayed his typical Herculean effort.

“Our (offensive) line really wore them down, especially in the second half,” he said. “But it was our defense that was the difference-maker. They just kept stuffing their runners. They couldn’t sustain a drive.

“It’s the best our defense has played.”

Again, White concurred.

“Our offense was able to grind it out tonight,” he said. “But our defense was great.”

The Class 4A fifth-ranked Cougars close their regular season next Friday at Waterloo West and have assured themselves a top seed in the playoffs.

Jacobus, whose big brother Derek came up from the University of Arkansas to watch him play Friday night, said there won’t be any letdown as Kennedy seeks its first-ever undefeated regular season.

“The best part is it’s easy to keep getting better when you’re having fun,” he said. “And we’re having fun.”

Kennedy will host a first-round playoff game on Wednesday, Oct. 28 against a No. 4 seed from another district.

Cedar Falls fell to 5-3 overall and 2-2 in the district.

KENNEDY 21, CEDAR FALLS 7

.                            CF             KEN

First downs             10                20

Rushes–yards     25-19           55-285

Passing yards       100                  83

Comp-att-int    10-21-0            7-13-0

Fumbles-lost          0-0                 2-1

Punts-avg            6-36               4-39

Penalties-yards      4-40               4-25

Cedar Falls  0 0 0 7 -  7

Kennedy     7 7 7 0 - 21

Scoring plays

K – DeMaris 13 pass from Duehr (Stone kick)

K – Dralle 1 run (Stone kick)

K – Dralle 13 run (Stone kick)

C – Fagan 3 pass from Alexander (Cook kick)

Individual statistics

Rushing

Cedar Falls – Clausen 8-12, Alexander 7-minus 16, Abbas 8-13, Middleton 1-10.

Kennedy – Dralle 38-192, DeMaris 5-19, Beyer 6-16, Duehr 4-65.

Passing

Cedar Falls - Alexander 10-21-0-100.

Kennedy – Duehr 7-12-0-83, Beyer 0-1-0-0.

Receiving

Cedar Falls – Harrington 2-31, Fagan 3-30, Middleton 4-36.

Kennedy – Beyer 1-14, Baker 1-7, Dralle 1-8, Coates 1-8, DeMaris 3-46.