A younger and smaller Aberdeen Roncalli squad was able to slow down unbeaten and fourth-rated Deuel, but it wasn’t able to stop the Cardinals Friday night at Dacotah Bank Stadium.

The Cavaliers prevented big plays while on defense, however could never get going on offense in a 26-0 setback in Northeast Conference football action.

“Hats off to Roncalli. I thought they came and played inspired football,” said Deuel coach Dustin Hourigan. “They were physical up front. It was a battle, it was a grind.”

However, the Cardinals don’t lose those physical battles very often, and they were up to the task against the Cavaliers.

Deuel’s ball carriers consistently moved the pile after initial hits, sometimes taking two or three tacklers with them.

“These guys have been good for a while,” said Roncalli coach Billy Young. “They got some guys that are 3 and 4-year starters.”

Meanwhile, the Cavaliers play a lot of underclassmen.

“We’re young. We had a lot of freshmen and sophomores on the field tonight,” Young said.

Gavin Kloos rushed for a pair of touchdowns for the Cardinals and finished with 118 yards on the ground. He talked about the physical running that has long been a part of the Deuel football tradition.

“Our offense has always been get the extra yard, keep turning your feet,” Kloos said. “That’s all it’s been.”

While Kloos found the end zone twice, Deuel quarterback Aidan Sievers led the team with 139 yards rushing and also tossed a touchdown pass to Gavin Maaland.

The Cardinals were able to rack up nearly twice as many plays as Roncalli, consistently running the ball on the way to nearly 300 yards. While preventing chunk yardage, the Cavaliers had a tough time with the physical running style.

“It’s pretty hard. There’s some big boys. They can run hard,” said Roncalli sophomore Cael Dreis. “Their quarterback, he can take a beating, I know that for sure. He’s tough.”

To compound matters, Roncalli was unable to sustain much offense, despite having stellar field position. The Cavaliers got inside the Deuel 20-yard line in the opening quarter and inside the 30 in the second period, and inside the 40 on two other occasions, but came up empty each time.

“We’ve got to find something offensively that will work,” Young said. “We got a few things that we feel confident in. We had some big runs, but we got to convert those into points.”

Part of the issue was Deuel’s defense, which applied pressure when it mattered most.

“They did good job of getting pressure on the quarterback,” Young said. “That was the first time this year we really got significant quarterback pressure.”

The Cardinals were able to make adjustments as the game wore to keep Roncalli off the scoreboard.

“Our front four is pretty solid, with the linebacking core right behind them,” Hourigan said. “We knew we needed to adjust a little bit as the game went on. We made our little adjustments and we were able to kind of take advantage of the things that we maybe saw on film and during the game to slow them down.”

Deuel, 4-0 on the season, is highly motivated after falling in the semifinals to Elk Point-Jefferson last fall on the final play of the game, just outside the end zone.

“It’s the biggest motivation for us. Being one-yard short, being on the one-yard line, it really made us mad,” Kloos said. “It’s the hump that we’re trying to get over this year, and trying to get past the semifinals to make it to the Dome. It really broke our heart. That’s kind of our motivation we use at practice every day.”

The Cavaliers, 1-3 to start the season, have plenty of motivation to try and turn things around heading into the second half of the campaign.

“It’s really frustrating. We were that close and it seems like you’re so far away when you look at the score,” Young said of the effort against Deuel. “It was a matter of communication here and there, guys not communicating on the field about who was in what coverage and stuff like that. It feels like were getting better and better and better. We want to turn those good plays into wins.”

Despite the setback, the Cavaliers feel like they are making strides.

“We emphasized working hard all week. Last week in Clark our effort wasn’t really there,” Dreis said. “We gave up on plays, but this week we emphasized hustle mentality, getting to the ball, all hats on the ball, and that was our game plan.”

Roncalli hosts Miller-Highmore-Harrold next Friday to celebrate homecoming. The Cavaliers plan on being ready to go.

“Heading into homecoming our attitude is we need this, we’re going to get this,” Dreis said, “and we’re going to get the dub.”

Deuel (4-0) 7 13 0 6 – 26

Aberdeen Roncalli (1-3) 0 0 0 0 – 0

First Quarter

D – Gavin Kloos 34 run (Cole Stangeland kick), :13.

Second Quarter

D – Kloos 7 run (Stangeland kick), 3:31.

D – Gavin Maaland 5 pass from Aidan Sievers, :00.

Fourth Quarter

D – Kloos 6 run, 3:58.

OFFENSE: Deuel rushing 46-298 (Sievers 20-139, Kloos 17-118, Asher Bauman 3-17, Ryker Gauger 3-14), passing 7-16-1 for 52 (Sievers 7-16-1 for 52), receiving (Braxtin Winter 2-31, Maaland 2-14, Sutton Benck 1-8), first downs 21; Aberdeen Roncalli rushing 23-15 (Ryder Shaving 3-20, Brock Bowman 2-10, Will Haskell 8-8), passing 8-14-0 for 65 (Austin Fisher 8-14-0 for 65), receiving (Creighton Fisher 2-30, Jean Anthony Thomas 3-20, Aiden Herandez 1-9, Haskell 2-6), first downs 6.

DEFENSE: Deuel, Maaland 6 tackles, Winter 4 tackles, Jaxtin Winter 3 tackles; Aberdeen Roncalli, Thomas 7 tackles and 1 sack, Landon Schmit 6 tackles, Haskell 5 tackles and 1 interception, Brady Haverkamp 4 tackles, Shaving 4 tackles.