by Phil Lozen, for AnnArbor.com

It’s often said defense wins championships. There were clearly no trophies on the line Friday night at Huron High School as the River Rats got their first win of the young football season over Dexer in shootout fashion

Huron beat the Dreadnaughts 65-46 in a game that featured 1,063 total yards of offense, 125 offensive plays and 16 touchdowns.

More coverage: Boxscore at MLive.com | Friday night roundup

The same teams combined for 22 total points in losses last week.

“We’ve been waiting for the offense to do what it did tonight,” Huron coach Cory Gildersleeve said. “We made mental mistakes in our first two games and tonight we didn’t do that. This week we talked about doing the little things right, about being disciplined. On the flip side, defensively, we’re scratching our heads a bit.”

Huron’s running game was stupendous and more than made up for any defensive shortcomings. Parish Thomas (formerly Parish Jacobs) and Jaavid Love combined for 440 yards and eight touchdowns. Each of the backs averaged more than 11 yards per carry.

“Our offensive line really worked hard this week,” Love said. “I just followed my blocks and ran hard.”

“Our receivers also did a great job of blocking, they had to make touchdown blocks down the field,” Thomas added. “This is a big confidence boost after scoring only 14 and 10 points, to come out and score 65.”

The first half saw the bulk of the scoring, with Huron taking a 39-33 lead into the break. It took a flurry of scoring in the final 53 seconds of the half for Dexter to close the gap to six.

Huron, which had leads of 14-0 and 28-13 earlier in the game, went up 39-21 on Thomas’ second rushing touchdown of the game with just 2:17 left in the half.

On that score, the senior worked his way along the offensive line from 5 yards out before finding a hole and extending the ball over the goal line in the middle of a mass of Dexter defenders. Much like he did all night, Thomas spun out of several tackles.

Dexter found its passing game after that and made a game of it. Senior quarterback Michael Mioduszewski, who had a hand in all but one of Dexter’s touchdowns, drove the Dreadnaughts 71 yards in 69 seconds and capped the drive with a 24-yard touchdown run with 1:02 left on the clock, cutting the lead to 39-27.

Just 31 seconds later, Dexter’s Jacob VanHoof stepped in front of an Alex Hassan pass and got Dexter the ball back on its own 39.

Mioduszewski went right back to work, running for 28 yards on the first play, and then hitting Alex Mortensen on a 42-yard strike just over the hands of the Huron defense to the River Rat 5-yard line with just 3 seconds left in the half.

On the next play, Mioduszewski found Mortensen again in the back of the end zone to pull the Dreadnaughts within 39-33. Mioduszewski had 94 yards passing and 52 yards rushing in that 2:11 span, and had 504 total yards (332 passing, 172 rushing) on the night.

Huron refused to take its foot off the gas in the second half, scoring on its first play from scrimmage in the second half, a 53-yard run by Love. After forcing Dexter into a three-and-out on its next possession, Thomas returned the Dreadnaught punt to the Dexter 8-yard line and Love scored again to put Huron up 51-33.

“Our offensive line, out of any of our groups, has been our best group in our first two game,” Gildersleeve said. “I thought (they) had a great game tonight. The kids (Love and Thomas) made some great cuts and they ran hard.”

Huron heads to Temperance Bedford next week to start Southeastern Conference Red Division play against the defending division champs. Dexter hosts defending SEC White champs Adrian.