Dexter knocks off Perryville 41-0

DEXTER, Mo. -- Dexter scored in every quarter and the defense had its best showing of the season as the Bearcats defeated Perryville 41-0 at Charles Bland Stadium on Friday night.

The win puts Dexter in position to lock up second place in Class 3 District 1 and move on to the playoffs with a win Thursday. Perryville needs to beat New Madrid and Kennett to knock off Dexter. The sum of the size of Perryville's win and the size of Dexter's loss would have to be at least 12. For instance, if Perryville beat New Madrid by 10 points, Dexter would have to lose by at least two points for the Pirates to make the playoffs.

Ben Mills got off to a quick start against the Pirates and finished 11 of 20 passing for 242 yards and three touchdowns. Two of those TD strikes went to Gary Summers (5 catches for 128 yards) on scoring plays of 22 and 38 yards, while the third scoring pass went to a wide open Austin Featherston late in the second quarter that covered 52 yards and pushed the Bearcats out front 27-0 at the half.

Wesley McCollough only got 14 carries for 48 yards, but two of those were for touchdowns -- a 3-yarder and 5-yarder

Aaron Mace's 1-yard touchdown run put the final points of the game on the board in the fourth quarter with the mercy clock running.

"I tell you what, they prepared a lot better this week, they had better practices, and it showed," Dexter coach Aaron Pixley said. "I thought we executed a lot of nice plays on offense. We were sporadic in there. We didn't play excellent all the time on offense, but they played well.

"The defense was lights out tonight. They were swarming to the ball, they were physical up front and I felt like we won that battle. Perryville is well coached. They are big, strong kids and they are going to get physical on you."

While Dexter rolled up 369 yards on offense, the Bearcats' defense limited the Pirates to 62 yards for the game -- 59 on the ground and 3 through the air.

Garrett Flengte and Kirk Handler went a combined 1 for 8 passing, and both threw one interception.