Oswego surrenders ground in SPC race

Indians gain control just before halftime

OSWEGO -- With chilly temperatures and a muddy field, Friday's matchup between Oswego and Minooka showed all the potential of a smash-mouth football game.

But in the end, it was Minooka that did all the smashing, as the Indians' 34-14 win evened the standings between the teams at 5-1 in Southwest Prairie Conference play with one week to go in the regular season.

"Credit them, their defense played really well," Oswego coach Dave Keely said. "I don't know what it was. I thought I had the kids prepared well on both sides of the ball, but we weren't."

The game was a defensive battle heading toward halftime until Minooka took advantage of two short-field situations to take a 13-0 lead at the break.

The first came when Parker Parzych blocked a Nathan Linden punt deep in Panthers territory and fell on the ball on the 5-yard line. Kyle Banks punched it in on the next play to make it 7-0 with 2:44 to play.

Oswego had to punt on its next possession and the Indians took over at the Panthers 44. Five plays later, Mitchell Brozovich hit Cody Carter on an 18-yard scoring strike to put Oswego in an even deeper hole.

"The blocked punt hurt big time and then we got sacked back there for a 10-yard loss (on the previous play)," Keely said. "We didn't make our road any easier."

But the real backbreaker came in the fourth quarter. After Ryan West (9-for-31, 151 yards passing) and Joe Kwiatkowski hooked up from 30 yards out to make it 20-7 with 11:55 to play, the Panthers had Minooka pinned on second-and-28 at the Indians 15-yard line.

But Steven Pullara (10 carries, 56 yards) gained 30 yards on back-to-back carries and the drive moved on. Brozovich, who rushed for 143 of his game-high 170 yards in the second half, later scored from 38 yards out at the 5:30 mark and finally capped the Minooka scoring with a 30-yard scamper with 1:17 to play.

"We had them on a long field and I thought we had them pinned back, but we let them off the hook," Keely said.

Both teams are also 6-2 overall. Oswego can still take the conference title with a win over Romeoville and a Minooka loss to Plainfield Central. And even if that doesn't happen, the playoffs come next.

Keely made sure in his postgame remarks that his team understood that.

"The season is far from being over for us, and we get to find out what kind of team we really are," he said. "We have to regroup and come back as a team and have a good week of practice."

Adam Brooking rushed for 41 yards to lead the Oswego ground game, while Kwiatkowski caught three passes -- two for touchdowns -- for 64 yards.