Larkin knocks off Oswego East

Reid Ellis raises his arms in celebration after teammate #34 Camerin Martin (bottom right) scored a touchdown in the first half of Friday night's game against Oswego East.

(Michael Smart/Staff photographer)

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ELGIN -- Larkin came out ready to explode Friday night against Oswego East, but needed something to ignite the flame.

The Royals got a game-changing play in the form of a failed Oswego East fake punt and the game then turned in the time it took Jalen Williams to race 20 yards and dive to the right pylon to tie the score 7-7.

From there the Royals went on to score an easy 34-7 non-conference victory to go 2-0 for the first time since 2002.

"That momentum shifted for us so good because after the TD, we got another one, we got another one, we got the kickoff back," said Williams, who rushed for 85 yards on 22 carries. "We kept piling it on and got their morale down."

Oswego East rugby-style punter Johnny Savu tried faking a punt with his team up 7-0 in the first quarter and was stuffed by Larkin's Alex Wahl running around the right side at Oswego East's 20-yard line for a 5-yard loss. One play later Larkin tied the score on Williams' 20-yard TD run and the first of four Alex Munoz extra-point kicks.

Larkin then kept right on exploding, rolling to 21 second-quarter points -- and very nearly 28 -- all in the final 3:53 of the first half.

"I just think the players have high expectations of themselves and they just came out putting pressure on themselves," Larkin coach Matt Gehrig said. "So it took a series or two to kind of knock the cobwebs out and for them to kind of settle down a little bit and play football the way they worked on it."

Williams broke a 31-yard TD run up the middle with 3:53 left in the second quarter for a 14-7 lead.

Then whatever chance Oswego East had seemed to vanish when its most consistent weapon to that point, running back Antoine Allen-Jackson, was stuffed at the line of scrimmage by linebacker Leandre Lee on fourth-and-one.

"They had been running the ball pretty good," Lee said. "That kind of stopped and made them revise their game plan and try something else. That was huge for us."

A penalty and one run later, Larkin sophomore quarterback Kyle Newquist found wide receiver Trevor Whitehead running all alone down the sideline behind Oswego East defensive back Deonatra Thomas for a 48-yard touchdown pass with 56 seconds left in the half.

Larkin's Michael Headtke recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff at Oswego East's 18 and a 16-yard pass from Newquist to Wahl set up Cam Martin's 2-yard TD run 19 seconds before halftime.

Larkin even had one more chance to score nine seconds later after a squib kick bounced off an Oswego East lineman and was recovered by Larkin's Brent Cooks. But a 35-yard run by Williams to the 2 with 10 seconds left was called back due to a clipping penalty.

Newquist and Whitehead hooked up again for a 14-yard TD pass in the fourth quarter to close the scoring.

"They came out and just took it to us the first quarter running the football up the middle," Gehrig said. "They were beating us to the punch and getting steady momentum and seven yards a pop. They had us on our heels a little bit."

The Wolves (0-2) led 7-0 after their first possession when Allen-Jackson burst up the middle 25 yards for a touchdown 6:31 into the game, and Kris Smith converted the point-after kick.

After that 45-yard drive, Oswego East managed only 111 more yards of offense the rest of the game against a hard-hitting Larking defense -- and 43 of those yards came on the final drive with the game decided.

"We are allowed to hit all through week, all practice," Lee said. "Coaches push us. We do hitting drills and we love to hit and we take pride in our defense."

Oswego East, which had 72 rushing yards on 18 carries from Allen-Jackson, hurt itself with five penalties, three turnovers, as well.

"It did seem like the momentum changed on that fake punt," East coach Mark Green said. "It was really hard for us to recover then. We made a couple additional mistakes that kind of got the ball rolling for them and we couldn't stop it.

"Before you know it we're down three scores before halftime. It's mental mistakes. We've got to eliminate the mental mistakes."

Larkin had 253 yards of offense, including 125 yards on 8-of-13 passing by Newquist.

LARKIN 34, OSWEGO EAST 7

Oswego East      7     0      0      0   --   7

Larkin                7     21     0      6  --  34

OE -- Antoine Allen-Jackson 25 run (Kris Smith kick) 1st, 7:29.

L -- Jalen Williams 20 run (Alex Munoz kick) 1st, 2:53.

L -- Williams 31 run (Munoz kick) 2nd, 3:53.

L -- Trevor Whitehead 48 pass from Kyle Newquist (Munoz kick) 2nd, :56.

L -- Camerin Martin 2 run (Munoz kick) 2nd, :19.

L -- Whitehead 14 pass from Newquist (Munoz kick) 4th, 5:06.

Team stats            Larkin              Oswego

First downs               13                         7

Rushes-yards         34-128                34-126

Passing yards           125                       30

Total yards               253                      156

Passes                   8-13-0                 5-15-0

Penalties-yds          5-46                      5-33

Fumbles                  2-1                        3-3

Individual Statistics 

Rushing

Larkin: Williams 22-85, Martin 10-37, Smith 2-6.

Oswego East: Allen-Jackson 18-72, Oliver Graham 8-42, Johnny Savu 2-(minus)2, Bobby Smith 1-6, J. Bitner 1-11, Dakoda Skenandore 3-(minus)8, Steve Henderson 1-5.

Passing

Larkin: Newquist 8-13-0-125.

Oswego East: Skenandore 3-12-0-14. Smith 2-3-0-16.

Receiving

Larkin: Reid Ellis 3-16, Trevor Whitehead 3-83, Alex Wahl 2-26.

Oswego East: Allen-Jackson 1-2, Bitner 3-23, Josh Harris 1-15.