Blessed with quick-strike capabilities, Elk River's offense gets the lion's share of the publicity. But Elks coach Steve Hamilton has been telling all who will listen that the defense is no slouch.

That much was proven Wednesday as Elk River spotted St. Francis an early touchdown, then shut down the Saints until the game was well in hand, emerging with a 30-13 victory at St. Francis.

"I've said that all year the difference with this team, other than 2016, is that we can really play defense," Hamilton said, giving a nod to a state championship team. "We've got some really good athletes and we're physical. The last time we were this good on defense was 2016."

The game pitted neighboring Class 5A schools with 7-0 records.

St. Francis, emotions running high, jumped to a 7-0 lead when running back Joe Waldock burst through the line on fourth-and-1 and raced 30 yards for a score. It was the third straight game Elk River had given up a touchdown on the opponent's opening drive.

"That was something we worried about," Hamilton said. "If you give them some right away, they're going to start believing. And we did, so we made it a little tough on ourselves."

The Elk River defense regrouped while the offense was doing its thing the next time it had the ball. Quarterback Cade Osterman scored from 6 yards out to make it 7-6.

Osterman added a 21-yard scoring run in the second quarter. A pair of long scoring runs by Gavin Schmidt and P.J. Bono in the second half helped build a comfortable 30-7 lead.

In the meantime, the Elk River defense was shutting down St. Francis. The Elks forced three turnovers and didn't let the Saints get another whiff of the end zone until 3:12 remained, on a touchdown pass from Jaxon Skogquist to Colin Schack.

"The game started the way we wanted, but offensively we didn't execute at the level we need to against a high-caliber team that, this year in particular, has some very athletic, impressive kids on their defense," St. Francis coach Brent Swaggert said.

Swaggert said simply playing in a game of such magnitude was worthy of team pride.

"To be playing as meaningful a game as this against a high-quality opponent, you can't ask for more than that," he said. "It projects well for our program moving forward and hopefully raises the bar for us."