BELLEVILLE -- Junior fullback Sam Mulford's line on the Edwardsville football roster sheet -- 5-foot-7, 175 pounds -- doesn't exactly strike fear into opponents.
That didn't stop Mulford from becoming a huge factor Friday in the Tigers' 28-3 Southwestern Conference victory over Belleville West.
Mulford ran the ball 22 times for 132 yards and a touchdown, most times doing nothing fancier than following his blocks and hitting the hole hard.
"Sammy's a tough kid," Edwardsville coach Matt Martin said after his team improved to 3-3 overall and 2-2 in league play. "He had some ball security issues early in the game, but he made that correction and the line did a good job."
Edwardsville speedster Cameron James -- who had 123 yards rushing -- broke the game open with a 66-yard touchdown run. It came one play after the Maroons (1-5 overall, 0-4 in league play) lost a fumble with 9:25 remaining in the third quarter.
That took the lead from 14-3 to 21-3 and the Tigers tacked on another TD on a 64-yard pass from Arik Bueltmann to Craig James with 5:12 remaining.
Edwardsville's best success with Mulford came on quick handoffs off-tackle. Many times he had five or six yards before he was even touched, then would drag tacklers a few more yards before going down.
"It's what they were giving us," Martin said. "Mulford's a 5.2 (-second) 40 (-yard dash) kid. It's the epitome of high school football. He's working hard, he's not blessed with the greatest speed or moves.
"He's just running the (play) like he's supposed to be running it and doing a good job of holding on to the football."
It was the fourth straight loss by Belleville West and the Maroons have just one offensive touchdown during the dry spell.
They had decent success running the ball against the Tigers led primarily by J'Vonta Williams. Williams ran for a game-high 141 yards, but the Tigers took advantage of three West turnovers, several dropped passes and defensive breakdowns.
"We had a lot of missed opportunities out there," West coach Cameron Pettus said. "We had a lot of dropped balls out there. We just have to make some plays."
Bueltmann's 4-yard TD run late in the first quarter put Edwardsville on top 7-0. Freshman Austin Seibert scored what proved to be West's only three points on a 35-yard field goal with 5:53 left in the first half.
With West crowding the line of scrimmage to stop the run, Bueltmann floated a pass over the line to wide-open tight end Garrett Jensen for a 56-yard gain to the 1.
Mulford bulled his way in from the 1 and the Tigers led 14-3.
"He's tough," Pettus said. "We knew the G-trap, that's their favorite play. It wasn't like we didn't know that was their No. 1 play coming in here.
"That's just what they do. We didn't just didn't do a good job of stopping it."
Edwardsville ran the ball 43 times for 288 yards, getting 66 of that total on Cameron James' TD run.
"They were hitting us off-tackle," Pettus said. "They were just doing a good job driving us off the ball."
Martin was happy to keep things on the ground, especially after his team had the lead.
"The kids kept banging on the rock and I'm not speaking for them, but it looked like to me they were willing to sacrifice some pass coverages to take away the run," Martin said. "We eventually hit some big plays."
Edwardsville's Jake Vinyard recovered a fumble and teammate Wes Grigaitis had an interception.
