Effingham kept the Bulldogs buried deep in their territory for much of the first 24 minutes. They had three straight possessions that went 3-and-out and were forced to punt. But the Hearts just couldn’t string enough offense together to reach the end zone.

Midway through the second period, MSHS struck again. Starting at its own five, Mahomet-Seymour put together a nine-play, 95-yard drive. The big play was a 65-yard completion from Dyer to Trey Peters. The drive culminated with a fourth-down, 11-yard run by Luke Johnson that put the Bulldogs up 14-0 at the 6:28 mark of the second quarter.

Mahomet-Seymour had another good scoring opportunity late in the period, but Effingham’s Wade Bushur intercepted a Dyer pass in the end zone to end that threat.

“Defensively, in the first half, I thought we did some good things,” EHS coach Brett Hefner said. “They hit us with that screen pass and another long pass. But other than that, I thought our defense played pretty well. We just couldn’t muster enough offense to put up much of a challenge.”

The second half was much different.

Dyer threw three touchdown passes – two to Peters -- Pagel got loose again, this time on an end-around, racing 61 yards for a score, and reserve running back Ryken Kirby scored the final TD with only 2:21 remaining. They scored on all five possessions and put up 34 more points.

Dyer finished the night 13-of-22 for 273 yards. He had four TD passes and one interception. Peters also had a big game, hauling in five receptions for 172 yards and a pair of scores. Johnson finished with 20 carries and 80 yards.

The Hearts had 111 yards on the ground, but only 14 through the air. Quarterback Gaige Gillum provided most of the offense with his legs. He gained 80 of the team’s 125 total yards. And had he not been sacked three times and thrown for a loss on three other plays, he would have easily cracked the 100-yard plateau.

The Bulldogs defense, led by nose tackle Jack Gallier, was clearly keying on Weldon Dunston. The EHS junior running back entered the game averaging more than 150 yards per game. He was held to just 10 yards on 16 carries.

The Hearts ran the ball 38 times, but were thrown for a loss on 14 of those. When Gillum did attempt a pass, he was under constant pressure. He completed 5-of-10 on the night for 14 yards.

“Against a team that aggressive and athletic, you can’t have negative plays,” Hefner noted. “We had too many of those tonight.”

The Bulldogs improved to 6-1 on the season and are unbeaten in conference play, standing at 4-0. They will play at Mattoon next week.

The Hearts dropped to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in the Apollo. They will return home to face Mt. Zion.

“We put ourselves behind the eight ball earlier in the season,” Hefner said. “We lost a couple games we shouldn’t have. We’ll work hard this week and be ready to play Mt. Zion.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Washington Savings Bank Stadium.