The Deuel Cardinals took advantage of several Aberdeen Roncalli miscues on Friday night.

The Cardinals forced six Roncalli turnovers en route to a 26-0 Northeast Conference football win at Dacotah Bank Stadium.

Deuel coach Dusty Hourigan was grateful to get the win.

“It feels good. We love playing Roncalli. It’s just a fun rivalry in a beautiful stadium – our first time here,” Hourigan said. “Excited for our kids. That was a well-fought game (on) both sides, so really excited to get the win tonight for sure, traveling here, being road warriors.”

The momentum fell into Deuel’s hands in the first quarter when Trey Maaland scored on a one-yard run, capping off an eight play, 66-yard drive to put the Cardinals ahead 7-0. On the ensuing Roncalli drive, Maaland intercepted a pass, the first of four picks for the Cardinals, but Deuel then fumbled it right back to the Cavaliers.

After stopping the Cavaliers, Deuel struck again. Maaland was sacked on the first play of the next drive, but the senior signal-caller responded on the very next play with a 61-yard touchdown pass to Oliver Fieber, extending the Cardinals’ lead to 13-0. Deuel added two more interceptions in the first half, but was unable to capitalize on either.

Hourigan was pleased with how the team was able to build a lead, but noted it also left points on the field in the first half.

“We were able to build a lead right off the bat,” Hourigan said. “You know, the last four minutes we kind of shot ourselves in the foot a number of times with a lot of penalties and different things and felt we should’ve had a score at the end of the first half. Those are things we’ve got to clean up. We’re a young team, and we’re just learning as we’re going here.”

The second half started the same way the first half ended for Roncalli, as Maaland once again picked off a pass and six plays later, scored his second rushing touchdown of the game, extending the Deuel lead to 19-0.

When asked about his performance, Maaland was quick to give credit to his teammates and coaches.

“Just got to give all of the credit to my O-line, my receivers, my running backs,” Maaland said. “Everybody played great. My coach called great plays. Guys made plays. The O-line fought their butt off. It was just a great game.”

The Cardinals added a pair of fumble recoveries before the end of the third quarter, and Maaland capped off the scoring with a two-yard run to open the fourth quarter, sealing the road win for Deuel.

Roncalli coach Billy Young said the amount of offensive mistakes hurt the team.

“Tip your hat to Deuel. They’re huge up front. They’re good, but we made so many mistakes on offense that it almost didn’t matter how good they were,” Young said. “When you turn the ball over as many times as we did, it’s hard to beat anybody. Some of them were mental mistakes, some of them were physical mistakes, but we definitely have some things we have to clean up moving forward.”

Maaland finished with 158 yards passing and one score, rushed for 87 yards and three scores and added a pair of interceptions. He noted that the Cardinals have had Roncalli on their calendar for quite some time and wanted to get the win to build momentum for the season.

“It’s a great win. This is one we’ve had marked off. We really wanted to get these guys,” Maaland said. “They’re a great football team, and this just helps keep building the momentum, but we just look toward next week. Just a 1-0 mentality.”

While Deuel will enjoy the win, Hourigan says there are adjustments that will need to be made before the Cardinals host Sisseton next Friday.

“We’re kind of getting some cramps and we just have to make sure our rotations are quicker with some of the rotation of our guys,” Hourigan said. “Defensively, we’ve just been really stout and so we’ve just got to make sure we don’t get over aggressive on defense.”

For Roncalli, which will host Redfield next Friday, one of the more noticeable adjustments Young sees will need to come on the offensive side of the ball.

“We just have to clean up some of our run blocking, that’s the biggest thing,” Young said. “We’re letting linebackers come through untouched, and that’s really inexcusable because we have that built into our system, where guys should be picking that up. We’ll have to take a look at it and see exactly what happened, but that’s the big thing that concerns me right now is just guys coming through the A and B gap untouched.”

Deuel (2-0) 13 0 6 7 – 26

Aberdeen Roncalli (1-1) 0 0 0 0 – 0

First Quarter

D – Trey Maaland 1 run (kick good) 5:11

D – Maaland 61 pass to Oliver Fieber 0:17

Third Quarter

D – Maaland 1 run 5:41

Fourth Quarter

D – Maaland 2 run 11:57

OFFENSE: Deuel, rushing 44-144 (Trey Maaland 19-87, Owen Haas 16-64), passing 8-13 for 158 (Maaland 8-13 for 158), receiving (Oliver Fieber 2-92, Gabe Sather 2-39, Dexter Unzen 3-21), first downs 10; Aberdeen Roncalli, rushing 32-61 (Kaden Larson 6-29, Aiden Fisher 9-25), passing 3-11-4 for 41 (Zane Backous 2-10-4 for 29), receiving (Noah Kramer 1-24, James Behan 1-12, Brody Weinmeister 1-5), first downs 5.

DEFENSE: Deuel, Maaland 2 interceptions, Sather 1 interception, Oliver Fieber 1 interception, Ethan Prins 1 sack and 1 fumble recovery, Aidan Baer 1 sack; Aberdeen Roncalli, Josh Shaunaman 1 sack.