ROCKFORD - This wasn’t the same Auburn Knights football team of the past three weeks.

After three straight NIC-10 conference losses, Auburn nearly ran itself to a homecoming victory against Freeport on Friday.

Eddie Cade rushed for 217 yards, but Freeport’s pass-happy offense came through taking a 54-42 victory.

Cade, who was featured sparingly at running back in last week’s 45-6 loss against Guilford, played the entire game at the position and it paid immediate dividends.

He scored the Knights’ first two touchdowns on breakaway runs of 59 and 74 yards.

“I had the most fun in this game,” Cade said. “Everybody came into this game thinking that we could win it.”

The Knights had their chances. Midway the second quarter, Auburn led 20-19 on Cortavien Wiggins’ 65-yard touchdown run.

Minutes later, Freeport (4-1) retook the lead when Tony Thompson scored on a 2-yard run to make it 27-20.

After a Freeport fumble, the Knights went four-and-out, only to kick a 10-yard punt that earned the Pretzels’ another touchdown score to make it 33-20.

“We knew we had to weather the storm,” said Freeport quarterback Kevin Flack, who set a school single-season record for touchdown passes. He threw five touchdowns and went 11-of-27 for 257 yards. “This was their homecoming. We just had to do what we needed to do.”

The previous school single-season record was 12 touchdowns.

Freeport’s defense shutout the Knights (1-4) in the third quarter, but Auburn rallied for two touchdowns scores to close the game.

Backup quarterback Nick Montgomery threw two touchdown passes to Antwan Teal of 67 and 12 yards in the final two minutes of the game.

- Brenda Young, rrstar.com