CHICAGO, Sept. 12 -- Of the few absolutes in sports, the truest is that you can’t lose if the other team doesn’t score..
 
Luther North didn’t score on Saturday and that meant Mooseheart had only to score once to win. The Ramblers sputtered for awhile but eventually got rolling and claimed a 40-0 Northeastern Athletic Conference victory.

The win gives the Ramblers a 3-0 start for the first time since 2006 and marked the second shutout of the season. Saturday’s performance came one week after Mooseheart surrendered 36 points against Christian Life.

“I thought we did a pretty good job defensively,” Mooseheart coach Gary Urwiler said. “I didn’t feel as if we were out of position. We stayed in our assignments. We changed some things up and it worked well for us.”

Although Mooseheart (3-0, 3-0) controlled the football from the opening kickoff, a series of miscues deep in the Wildcats territory left the game in doubt at halftime.

“The first half, I don’t know how many more chances we needed,” Urwiler said. “But you know what? We’ve been talking about character and this was a character builder. You’re either going to fold up your tent or you’re going to find a way to have some success, and we did.”

The Ramblers took the lead on a 53-yard TD run by Jonell Crump with 53 seconds left in the first quarter. When Luther North (0-3, 0-3) fumbled the ensuing kickoff, Brendan Douglas recovered. Damion Moore scored from 6 yards with 37 seconds left in the opening period, and it looked as if the Ramblers were set to swamp the Wildcats.

But from one miscue to another, the scoring flood never materialized and the teams went into halftime with Mooseheart still ahead by that 14-0 score.

“We had to keep pushing through the game,” Douglas said. “We knew the game wasn’t through. So we had to keep our intensity up. The line kept pushing up and our linebackers did what we had to do.”

The offense got moving in the third quarter. Moore ran in from 12 yards and Shawn McReynolds scored on a 21-yard run.

When Crump scored from 17 yards and Oumaru Abdulahi powered in around the right end from 14 yards, the Ramblers had their second consecutive 40-point offensive performance.

Crump had another solid rushing game. He gained 140 yards and scored two touchdowns. He has 369 rushing yards and seven TDs this season and has played only two games. But while the offense needed some time to put its pieces together, the defense showed marked improvement over its efforts in the 46-36 win over Christian Life in Week 2 of the campaign. Mooseheart’s next contest is a key early-season test. The Ramblers travel to undefeated Rockford Christian on Friday for a 7 p.m. contest.

“I think it’s gone OK so far,” Douglas said. “We have to put in a good week of practice and get ready to play hard and see what comes for us from it.”

The high school season is typically broken into three mini-seasons of three games. Through the first third of the 2009 campaign, the Ramblers are 3-0.

“We’re very happy with where we are,” Urwiler said. “We know some of the bigger teams, with records to match that, are coming up. We’ll get ready to go to Rockford and see what happens.”
 

Scoring plays
M – Crump 53 run (run failed)
M – Moore 6 run (Brigman pass to Gutierrez)
M – Moore 22 run (Cheneyon kick)
M – McReynolds 21 run (kick failed)
M – Crump 17 run (run failed)
M – Abdulahi 14 run (Cheneyon kick)
 
Mooseheart stats:
Rushing: McReynolds 4-12, Brigman 3-9, Abdulahi 2-31, McReynolds 2-22, Moore 11-60, Crump 11-140.
 
Passing: Brigman: 4-9-1 44