The Murray County Central Rebels opened the 2025 High School Football season on Friday night in Dawson. For the first time since 2018 the Rebels and the Dawson Boyd Blackjacks would face off on a football field and the two teams would play a hard fought defensive battle with lots of hard hits and not much offense. The first game of the 2025 season would be played much like the first game might have been played in 1975 with defense being the key.
The Blackjacks offense would start the game strong. Though they struggled to get yards on first and second downs, they found a way to pick up first downs on the passing by Gunnar Liebl. The senior quarterback found a way to avoid the Rebel pass rush and complete passes down field. On the first possession, Liebl made a big run to get inside the Rebel 15 yard line, but fumbled. MCC’s Brayden Gilb recovered. It was a big play by the Rebel defense and stopped the Dawson Boyd drive, but MCC was forced to punt three plays later and gave the Blackjacks great field position, inside the 50 yard line. The Rebel defense, again stopped the Blackjacks on 1st and 2nd downs, but on third down, Liebl threw a perfect pass to Jaxton Hastad who put the ball inside the Rebel 10 yard line. Two plays later, Nathan Hansen scored on a three yard touchdown to make the score 6-0 and Elvis Bellefeuille took on the extra point to make the score 7-0 with 4:22 to play in the first quarter. The two teams would battle the rest of the half without points being scored. It was a physically hard hitting first half that in the end would see the Blackjacks in the lead at halftime.
The second half saw MCC control the clock, as they drove into Blackjack territory on the first drive of the third quarter. The Rebels used nearly seven minutes to get inside the Dawson Boyd 20 yard line, but failed to score. MCC would get the ball back later in the third quarter on an interception by Dugan Kluis, putting the Rebels at the 40 yard line. Again, the Rebels failed to score. Dawson Boyd struggled to move the ball in the second half. Trying to run the ball was hard to do against the Rebel defense and Dawson Boyd played it more conservatively on offense to protect their lead. In the end, the Blackjacks would fail to score points in the second half, but the Rebel offense would also fail to score. Dawson Boyd got the win, 7-0 over the MCC Rebels.
The Rebels knew they would be tested the first two weeks of the season, playing two games on the road, against Dawson Boyd and Springfield. The two teams that lost less than three games last season total. The Rebel defense played a great game on Friday night, allowing just seven points. It was the Rebel offense that struggled, as MCC converted one first down in the entire first half. Then in the second half, MCC failed to finish drives into the red zone. On a positive note, the Rebels only committed one penalty in game 1 and did not turn the ball over, while forcing 2. The Rebels will look to bounce back against Springfield this coming Friday night.
