HORICON — Horicon forced four turnovers, scored a safety and held visiting Laconia to seven points in Friday's 23-7 Flyway football opener.

"Our defense came up big all night," Horicon coach Jim Trost said. "Laconia runs the spread and has one of the best receivers in the conference.

"We did a great job inside the 20s of stopping them. We kind of bent but didn't break."

Horicon scored 2 minutes, 7 seconds into the contest when Laconia botched a punt snap and fell on it for a safety. Four plays after the ensuing free kick, Nick Steffen took a screen pass from Mike Michalovitz 25 yards for a 9-0 edge.

Laconia scored to make it 9-7 at the break but Shaun Dickinson reeled in a 17-yard scoring toss from Michalovitz 3:45 into the second half. Michalovitz picked off a pass to set up the clincher, Cody Apfelbeck's 35-yard TD jaunt, with 1:26 to play.

"It was a total team effort," Trost said. "Cody won it for us at the end behind our line when they knew he was getting it."

Steffen recovered a fumble and Connor Baker picked off two passes for the Marshmen.

"Our defense is the strength of our team," Trost said. "They won the game for us tonight."

Apfelbeck finished with 148 yards on 19 carries. Horicon (3-0, 1-0 Flyway) visits Winnebago Lutheran Academy next week.

Laconia (1-2, 0-1) hosts Mayville.

HORICON 23, LACONIA 7

Laconia 0 7 0 0 - 7

Horicon 9 0 7 7 - 23

H - Safety, fumble recovery in end zone, 1st 9:53

H - Steffen 25 pass from Michalovitz (Dickinson kick), 1st 07:10

L - Kinyon 1 run (DeBoer kick), 2nd 04:31

H - Dickinson 17 pass from Michalovitz (Dickinson kick), 3rd 08:15

H - Apfelbeck 35 run (Dickinson kick), 4th 01:26

LA HO

First downs 12 8

Total Net Yards 316 270

Rushes-yards 43-250 32-200

Passing 66 70

Comp-Att-Int 8-20-3 4-10-1

Penalties-Yards 5-25 7-60

Fumbles-Lost 2-1 1-1

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS: RUSHING - L, Starbird 22-141. H, Apfelbeck 19-148. PASSING - L, Kinyon 8-20-3-66. H, Michalovitz 4-8-1-70. RECEIVING - L, Dahlke 2-23. H, Steffen 2-38.