Saints roll over rival North Stars

St. Charles North linebacker Kyle Pocci (51) chases down St. Charles East's Tyler Nutting on Friday night at North.
tyler stoffel | For The Courier News

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ST. CHARLES -- St. Charles East running back Wes Allen certainly didn't look like someone who had just carried the ball 46 times after Friday's game at crosstown rival St. Charles North.

Maybe it's because winning has a funny way of being a cure-all for everything.

Allen was feeling no pain because he was too busy taking in a 21-0 Saints win. The senior tailback rushed for 238 yards and two touchdowns as East pulled ahead 5-4 in the all-time series.

"When you have a horse, you ride him," said East coach Ted Monken. "And we've got a heck of a horse. We really design our offense around Wes and we were going to let him carry us as far as he could take us."

Allen had a 29-yard touchdown run with 14 seconds left in the first half, which broke a scoreless tie. He added a 1-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter as East clinched its fourth consecutive playoff berth.

"I actually feel fine," said Allen. "It didn't feel like 46 carries. I'm too excited to think about being sore right now. I'm not sure if that was the plan, but I do know the plan was to win, and we did it."

Behind Allen, the Saints (6-2, 5-1 Upstate Eight Conference) controlled the ball in the first half, running 37 offensive plays to the North Stars' 13.

The Saints' defense held North to just 22 yards in the first half and then came up big twice in the fourth quarter when the North Stars threatened to tie the game.

A 41-yard pass from Sean McGushin to Jon DeMoss put the North Stars (5-3, 3-2) at the Saints' 4-yard line early in the fourth quarter, but the Saints' defense stiffened. After two unsuccessful runs and an incomplete pass, cornerback Eric O'Brien broke a up a fourth down pass intended for DeMoss in the end zone.

The North Stars had another scoring opportunity with just under eight minutes to play, but the Saints' Bryce Barry picked off a McGushin pass at the goal line to kill the threat.

"We shuffled up our defense a couple weeks ago by getting Barry in at safety and moving O'Brien over to the corner," said Monken. "It's obvious it worked out pretty well for us. They've both come up with some big plays the last couple weeks. Plus, we've been getting a lot better pressure from out front four without having to bring the farm, and that's really helped us in stopping the run."

East got an insurance touchdown with 6:48 left to play when Tim Russel connected with Tyler Nutting on an 81-yard touchdown pass to put the Saints up 14-0.

"We just shot ourselves in the foot in the first half," said North coach Mark Gould "And then when we had our chances in the second half, we just couldn't get it done. Defensively I thought we did a nice job for most of the first half, but it's pretty tough to keep a guy like Allen in check the whole game."