DuPage football began their " Drive for Five" in impressive fashion on Saturday night vs Rochester Community and Technical College. With a balanced offensive attack and a swarming aggressive defensive effort, the four time defending National Champions began their 2025 campaign with a 60-14 blowout win over the Yellow Jackets at Bob MacDougall Field.
The scoring started early for the Chaps. After Dupage's
Nehemiah Jones made an interception on the Yellow Jackets second offensive play, the Chaps converted a 31 yard field goal by
Danny Duray to take a 3-0. After an exchange of turnovers, The defense then stepped up and forced a safety on the next Rochester offensive possession for a 5-0 lead.
The first touchdown of the evening was scored on the ensuing drive as QB
Askia Bullie took it himself from 20 yards out for a 12-0 Chaps lead that ended the first quarter scoring. The Chaps next possession was capped off by
AJ Moore, whose one yard plunge gave DuPage a 19-0 lead.
After a Rochester touchdown and two point conversion cut the score to 19-8, QB
Justin Bland led a drive that ended with him taking it in himself from one yard out for a 26-8 lead. The Chaps closed out the first half with another score as Duray knocked in his second FG of the night to give the Chaps a 21 point lead going into the half.
DuPage put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring the Yellow Jackets 24-0 in that period.
Ethan Middleton scored on a five yard run, Hayden Janke followed on the next offensive possession with a 12 yard run and
Pat Pitello hauled in a 25 yard pass from Bland to make it 50-8. Duray added his third field goal of night near the end of the third quarter to make it 53-8 heading into the 4th.
Middleton ended the DuPage scoring outburst with his second touchdown of the night, a 36 yard dash to the end zone that made it 60-8. In all, six different Chaps reached the end zone in the win.
The Chaps had 376 yards rushing, led by Bullie's 86 rushing yards with Middleton and Moore gaining 80 and 79 yards on the ground respectively. 9 different receivers added up to 206 receiving yards for the Chaps to pace a balanced attack. The two headed QB tandem of Bland and Bullie went 15-36 for 206 and a TD. On the other side of the ball, DuPage forced 4 Rochester turnovers and were paced by
William Sierra's 8 tackles.
The Chaps take to the road for the first time in 2025 next week, traveling to Minnesota West for a 1:00 PM kickoff on Saturday, Aug 30.
