Xavier lost its Valentine but still had a Ball Friday night at Kingston Stadium.

Senior Nick Ball replaced fellow senior Carter Valentine in the Xavier backfield midway through the second quarter and ran for 129 yards to help Xavier to a 37-10 win over Jefferson in a Mississippi Valley Conference Valley Division football game.

Junior Reggie Schulte threw two touchdown passes and ran for another for the Saints (4-2 Valley, 5-3 overall). Xavier clinched a Class 4A playoff berth with the win.

"I don't keep track of the points I just try to win every game," Xavier Coach Duane Schulte said. "But this gets us a winning season and that's important."

The Saints close out the regular season at home against No. 3 Linn-Mar next Friday.

Jefferson (0-5, 0-8) lost its 21st straight game in its final regular-season home game.

"I always wanted to win a game on this field. Now I don't have a chance as varsity player," Jefferson senior linebacker Jordan Dee said. "A lot of guys are heartbroken by this."

Jefferson, which was allowing 259 yards rushing per game, girded up to stop Valentine and the Xavier running attack early in the game. Valentine came into the game with 932 rushing yards, including 232 last Friday in a 19-13 win over Waterloo East. Reggie Schulte only threw six passes against East, and completed three for 10 yards.

"Based on what we did the week before, you'd have to be thinking that way," Coach Schulte said when asked if he felt Jefferson loaded up to stop the run. "We were going to come and see what they were prepared to do. I don't want to say we came in ready to throw. We just came in and tried to get first downs and that was part of it."

That was a big part of it.

"We had to stop something," Dee said. "We'd stop them on the run and then they'd throw right over us. You got to execute no matter what."

Reggie Schulte completed his first eight passes against the J-Hawks. His first went to Jordan Hoffman for 43 yards and set up a 1-yard sneak by Schulte for a touchdown with 7:37 left in the first quarter.

"We hate to talk about individuals, but he had a lot of great help from his line blocking, the back ran hard and the receivers made good catches and that made him look good," Coach Schulte said when asked about the performance of his son, Reggie. The young Schulte finished 12-of-15 for 189 yards. "It's hard to play quarterback. Sometimes you have to get help to make you look good and that's what our guys did tonight."

Jefferson turned the ball over its next two possessions. Xavier capitalized with a 15-yard touchdown pass from Schulte to Corbin Woods and a 14-0 lead with 5:04 still left in the quarter.

"We had a plan to stop their pass, too," Jefferson Coach Jim Womochil said. "We just got so caught up in the run that we made some wrong reads on play-actions and let some guys run free.

"Then we played most of the first half on our side of the 50 and against a good football, you just can't do that."

Valentine scored on a 7-yard run early in the second quarter for a 21-0 lead. He carried the ball only two more times before Ball took over.

After being held for no gain on his first carry, Ball ripped off runs of 25 and 12 yards to set up Matt Hansen's 4-yard touchdown run. That gave the Saints a 28-0 lead with 4:40 left in the first half.

"Carter has had some injuries, but he's been working through them and done a great job," said Ball, who had carried the ball only seven times for 52 yards before Friday. Despite his lack of carries, Ball said he never got frustrated biding his time. "Carter Valentine is a great running back and I had complete faith in him. I'm used wherever I'm needed and I'll help my team wherever I can."

Ball also had runs of 12, 27 and 46 yards. He finished with 13 carries for 129 yards.

"It's what every high school senior wants, to come out and have a really good game," Ball said.

"Nick Ball is a tough kid and ran hard," Coach Schulte said. "He's not bad, either. He's a quick little guy."

Even when things went well for the J-Hawks, they didn't go quite well enough. Midway through the third quarter Jefferson held the Saints on a fourth-and-goal at the 1, stuffing up Schulte trying to sneak the ball across the goal line.

On the J-Hawks' first play from scrimmage, Austin Short was caught in the end zone for a safety. The J-Hawks had to kick back to the Saints and Xavier drove 46 yards for another touchdown. Schulte hooked up with Woods again from 17 yards out and the Saints led 37-0 with 3:52 left in the third quarter.

Jefferson was held to 114 yards through the first three quarters, but totaled 115 in the fourth quarter against Xavier's second and third teams. J-Hawks senior Andrew Patience kicked a 32-yard field goal early in the period and the J-Hawks tallied again on a 33-yard touchdown pass from sophomore Layne Sullivan to Short.

"That's a great opportunity for those kids," Coach Schulte said of getting the reserves into the game. Xavier is not playing a junior varsity schedule this season. "Even our scout team guys did a good job. We got a great week out of them in practice and they did a good job."

Jefferson closes out the season next Friday at Dubuque Hempstead.

XAVIER 37, JEFFERSON 10

Xavier           14   14    9    0   -   37
Jefferson       0     0     0   10   -  10

CRX - Reggie Schulte 1 run (Josh Steffensmeier kick)

CRX - Corbin Woods 15 pass from Schulte (Steffensmeier kick)

CRX - Carter Valentine 7 run (Steffensmeier kick)

CRX - Matt Hansen 4 run (Steffensmeier kick)

CRX - Safety, Austin Short tackled in end zone

CRX - Woods 17 pass from Schulte (Steffensmeier kick)

CRJ - FG Andrew Patience 32

CRJ - Austin Short 33 pass from Layne Sullivan (Patience kick)

Team Stats

First downs -- CRX 18, CRJ 14

Rushes yards -- CRX 45-206, CRJ 33-119

Receiving yards -- CRX 189, CRJ 110

Comp-Att-Int -- CRX 12-16-0, CRJ 7-17-0

Punts-avg. -- CRX 2-25.5, CRJ 3-31.3

Fumbles-lost -- CRX 0-0, CRJ 2-2

Penalties-yards -- CRX 5-35, CRJ 4-35

Individual Stats

Rushing -- CRX: Nick Ball 13-129, Carter Valentine 10-42, Matt Hansen 7-26, Luke Hammerberg 5-12, Reggie Schulte 6-3, Zach Brown 1-(-1), Team 3-(-5).

CRJ: Austin Short 11-44, Kyle Mann 4-28, Layne Sullivan 9-23, Hunter Kloubec 3-20, Drake Allen 3-8, Tanner Lund 2-1, Mitchell Khader 1-(-5).

Passing -- CRX: Schulte 12-15-0-189, Team 0-1-0-0. CRJ: Sullivan 7-17-0-110.

Receiving -- CRX: Corbin Woods 7-87, Jordan Hoffman 2-47, Jordan Weber 1-39, Kevin Hosch 1-9, Hansen 1-7.

CRJ: Christian Knox 3-25, Short 1-33, Kloubec 1-24, Austin Goodell 1-18, Taylor Birkicht 1-10.

Sophomore score - Xavier 31, Jefferson 6