MITCHELL – It started from the opening kickoff and continued for the duration after that.

Aberdeen Central recovered a fumble to start the game, racked up more than 400 yards offense, forced four turnovers and rolled to a 48-8 Eastern South Dakota Conference football win over Mitchell Friday night.

“They played really hard,” said Central coach Justin Briese of his players. “We emphasized this week a lot about playing a mistake-free game, and I think for the most part we did that on both sides of the ball.”

The Golden Eagles accumulate 201 yards rushing to go along with 204 yards passing, and prevented the Kernels from making many big plays to help secure the victory.

“Our offense, being as balanced as we were tonight, the defense being able to create some takeaways and get the ball back in our offense’s hands were huge for us,” Briese said.

Central scored the first 34 points of the contest. Colby Dauwen scored on a 3-yard run in the opening quarter. The Eagles added a second-quarter TD when Brayden Bowman scrambled out of the pocket and spotted Dauwen at the 25-yard line. Dauwen caught the pass and then raced into the end zone for a 34-yard touchdown.

“That could have been a big loss, but (Bowman) was moving, our receivers kept coming back to the ball,” Briese said. “Once Colby caught it, he’s a competitor. He’s going to try and score. Once he gets going, he’s gone.”

Bowman then fired a perfect strike to Karson Borge who caught it in stride for a 40-yard TD in the third quarter. Ridley Waldo added an 18-yard touchdown run to make the margin 28-0.

The Eagles were driving again, when Bowman suffered an injury and was forced to leave the contest. Dauwen played quarterback the rest of the way and fired an 18-yard TD pass to Brody Aesoph early in the fourth quarter.

After a Mitchell score, Central tacked on two more touchdowns, another by Waldo and the final one by Max Borns.

Waldo finished with 122 yards rushing, Bowman with 186 yards passing, and Aesoph with 93 yards receiving.

Meanwhile, the defense, led by Felipe Gonzalez, made things difficult for Mitchell to move the ball on a consistent basis.

“He’s does a great job on the interior D-line for us,” Briese said of Gonzalez.

Add it all together, and Briese believes it was probably Central’s most complete effort on the field this season.

“It kind of comes back to playing mistake free ball, and not giving up a lot of penalties,” he said, “and at the same time not giving up things on defense.”

Central has won three straight games to move to 3-3 on the season. After back-to-back road games at Sturgis and Mitchell, the Eagles will host Huron on Friday at Brownell Activities Complex.

“I don’t mind some bus time,” Briese said, “but after about 20 hours of bus time the last week now, I’m ready to play a home game or two.”

Aberdeen Central (3-3) 7 7 14 20 – 48

Mitchell (1-5) 0 0 0 8 – 8

AC – Colby Dauwen 3 run (Cordel Rychlik kick).

AC – Dauwen 34 pass from Brayden Bowman (Rychlik kick).

AC – Karson Borge 40 pass from Bowman (Rychlik kick).

AC – Ridley Waldo 18 run (Rychlik kick).

AC – Brody Aesoph 18 pass from Dauwen.

M – Parker Denne 31 pass from Jaxson Hartman (Hudson Borgan pass from Denne).

AC – Waldo 36 run (Rychlik kick).

AC – Borns 10 run (Rychlik kick).

OFFENSE: Aberdeen Central, rushing 36-201 (Waldo 17-122, Dauwen 11-47, Borns 3-32, Bowman 3-8), passing 13-21-3 for 204 (Bowman 12-20-3 for 186, Dauwen 1-1-0 for 18), receiving (Aesoph 70-93, Borge 3-53, Dauwen 2-40, Waldo 1-8), first downs 19; Mitchell, rushing 19-42 (Denne 9-49, Kellan Odell 1-5), passing 13-26-1 for 121 (Hartman 12-20-1 for 121, Lincoln Bottum 1-5-1 for 0, Borgan 0-1-0 for 0), receiving (Denne 3-62, Borgan 1-22, Hunter Magee 2-20), first downs 6.