Published: September 09, 2006 03:25 am         

Vikings beat themselves

DANVILLE — The Danville Vikings were their own worst enemy Friday night at Ned Whitesell Field.

Bloomington turned four Danville first-half turnovers into touchdowns en route to a 37-17 victory in Big 12 football action.

“Against a good football team, like Bloomington is every year, you can’t afford to do that,’’ Danville coach B.J. Luke said. “It felt like were moving the ball and doing the things that we wanted to do. But then we would turnaround and make a mistake that we didn’t need to make.’’

The first miscue for the Vikings (2-1 overall and 2-1 in the Big 12 Conference) was a fumble by Marcus Williams after an 11-yard pass play from Cody Ziegler as Danville took possession on its own 1-yard line.

Bloomington linebacker Joey Tyson recovered the fumble, setting up the Purple Raiders (2-1, 2-1) at the Danville 12.

One play later, Bloomington had a 7-0 lead as Cole Lamberti blasted through the middle of the Danville defense for a 12-yard scoring run.

“Obviously, helping us set the tone, was the immediate turnover and the score,’’ Bloomington coach Rigo Schmelzer said. “When you have a program like Danville, that is trying to get to the next level, some of the kids start to question and think when you hit them like that.

“Had that not occurred, who knows what would have happened. Emotions are very important in football.’’

The next three possessions for the Vikings had identical results.

Ziegler, who did throw for 190 yards, was intercepted on each occasion — two by Erik Wilson and once by Josh Mitchell.

“We have been practicing for their passing game all week,’’ Mitchell said. “We were able to read the quarterback and make a break on the ball. We were there, pretty much, every time.

“We knew the routes that they like to run, because they basically run only three routes — we just sat on them and made the plays.’’

Compounding the turnover problem for Danville was that Bloomington converted each one into a touchdown.

“We were digging ourselves a deeper hole with each possession, trying to get out of it was the hard part,’’ said Danville wide receiver Michael Duckworth, who had six catches for 67 yards. “We weren’t focused in the first half, and we kind of gave them the game.’’

Luke said the mistakes and the turnovers are correctable.

“We made some unforced errors like misreads and so forth — we have to clean those things up,’’ he said. “I think this was a case of it being our first time that we have played a big game against a big team that means something.

“I’ve talked a lot to the kids and the coaches about the next step is you have to learn how to deal with being a winner. You have learn how to deal with being successful. Sometimes that is as tough of a deal as turning things around.’’

Luke, who has credited his team with having poise after wins over Urbana and Mattoon to start the year, admitted the offensive struggles got to his team.

“You have to have poise, when things don’t go your way, right away, and you can’t just expect things to go your way because they have,’’ he said. “You have to have poise and when things go bad, you have to stand up. I think we got flustered a little bit.’’

Purple Raider quarterback Stephen Esch make the Vikings pay for their miscues.

Esch completed seven of his first eight passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns as Bloomington built a 28-0 lead.

“We have two very good receivers (Mitchell and David Cook) and a quarterback with a strong arm,’’ Schmelzer said. “When he is reading properly we think we are able to go 1-on-1 with a lot of different individuals in our conference.

“I know Danville has good skilled people, but we like our matchups.’’

Not only did turnovers hurt the Vikings in the first 24 minutes, but so did one penalty in the final 30 seconds.

Danville’s Reggie Cloyd got around the left end, broke a couple of tackles and sprinted for an apparent 82-yard touchdown, but an illegal block in the back brought the play back.

The Vikings managed at least a field goal as J.B. Cromwell, playing in his first game, split the uprights from 39 yards as the first-half clock expired cutting Bloomington’s lead to 28-3 at halftime.

“This is a great learning tool as far as preparing for a big game, and how you have to approach a big game,’’ Luke said. “I thought our kids worked real hard this week — we had a good week of practice.

“There is something about a big game like this, you have to turn it up to another notch. That is something our kids have became aware of tonight.

“We have to address it and learn from it, just like we try to do with every other thing in the learning process,’’ he added. “We are trying to learn off anything that is a problem for us.’’

The Vikings did make things respectable with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns.

Cloyd, who ran for 134 yards on 22 carries, had a 2-yard scoring run and backup quarterback Kendall Carter scored on a 25-yard scoring jaunt.

Things don’t get any easier for Danville next week as they travel to Champaign to play Centennial, which is 3-0 after 46-0 win over Decatur Eisenhower on Friday.