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CRYSTAL LAKE – Prairie Ridge football coach Chris Schremp says his team commits at least an hour at every practice to working on blocking, and its games like the one the Wolves had against Grayslake North on Friday night is where all that blocking practice really shows up.
The Wolves ran for over 500 yards and countered the Knights' big plays with their own in the 65-27 win in Fox Valley Conference Fox Division play.
The Wolves (4-1, 3-0 FVC Fox) superior running attack starts with its experienced offensive line. The line, which consists of four seniors in Luke Ponga, Dereck Pearson, Ryan Orr, Kyle Heinzmann and their tallest player in sophomore Jeff Jenkins, gave the Wolves the running lanes they needed to excel on the ground.
“Every day at practice, we go through second-level drills, our favorite drills,” Ponga said sarcastically. “It works on our shoulder and hand blocking skills and that’s the drill that gives us those chances for those big plays like tonight.”
Prairie Ridge needed those big plays early as the Knights (2-3, 1-1 FVC Fox) came out with a big-play running attack of their own. The teams played a sequence at the end of the first quarter that Schremp said he’s never seen before, and something he doesn’t want to see again.
The Knights scored a touchdown with 1:17 left in the first quarter to take a 14-3 lead. The next three plays ran between the two team’s offenses all resulted in touchdowns.
Nathan Griffin ran 45 yards for the first of his three touchdowns. That was followed by an 88-yard run from Knights running back Dami Oladunmoye, his third touchdown of the first quarter, and that was followed by a 65-yard run by Samson Evans for Prairie Ridge.
It was four touchdowns in a matter of 44 seconds.
“That was just some good athletes making some big plays,” Schremp said. “That’s what it comes down to, No. 10 (Oladunmoye) ran his butt off for them and we just kept running our offense to stay with him.”
Oladunmoye had a huge game for the Knights running for 335 yards and four touchdowns on 27 carries. He had 179 of those yards in the first quarter.
The Wolves continued their offensive rush in the second half, while the Knights were unable to keep up. Samson Evans ran the ball 15 times for 170 yards and three touchdowns. He added two passing touchdowns for 262 total yards. Nathan Griffin ran for three scores and 270 yards on 20 carries.
Unsung Hero
Nick Greenberg
Prairie Ridge, Sr., DB
Greenberg knocked down a few passes and had some tackles in the backfield as the Wolves' defense slowed Grayslake North down in the second half in the FVC Fox Division win. Greenberg was a vocal leader in the first half, when team defense was struggling.
THE NUMBER
27- The number of points scored between the two teams in the last 1:17 of the first quarter.
AND ANOTHER THING
With the win, Prairie Ridge is now 3-0 in Fox Valley Conference Fox Division play and the last remaining unbeaten team. They have games against the Woodstock schools and Hampshire left.
Prairie Ridge 65, Grayslake North 27
Grayslake North 20 0 7 0 - 27
Prairie Ridge 17 14 20 14 - 65
First quarter
GLN- Oladunmoye 31 run (Rhodes kick), 10:2
PR- FG Greiner 23, 3:15
GLN- Oladunmoye 3 run (Rhodes kick), 1:17
PR- Griffin 45 run (Greiner kick), 1:07
GLN- Oladunmoye 88 run (kick failed), 46.7
PR- Evans 65 run (Greiner kick), 33.6
Second quarter
PR- Brown 38 pass from Evans (Greiner kick), 3:23
PR- Brown 16 pass from Evans (Greiner kick), 32.5
Third quarter
PR- Evans 1 run (Greiner kick), 9:30
GLN- Oladunmoye 90 run (Rhodes kick), 9:09
PR- Griffin 40 run (Greiner kick), 8:17
PR- Griffin 45 run (kick failed), 2:43
Fourth quarter
PR- Evans 5 run (Greiner kick), 11:50
PR- Gulbransen (Greiner kick), 4:12
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS RUSHING- Prairie Ridge: Griffin 20-270, C. Brown 5-3, Evans 15-170, Gulbransen 3-1, Ebirim 7-46, Priester 1-16. Totals: 51-506. Grayslake North: Oladunmoye 27-335, Wright 2- minus 5, Hochstein 1-1, Geary 1-0, Gawenda 2-5, Ambre 3- minus 7. Totals: 36-329. PASSING- Prairie Ridge: Evans 2-4-92. Grayslake North: Wright- 10-17-131, Ambre 4-5-15. RECEIVING: Prairie Ridge: D. Brown 2-54. Grayslake North: Geary 3-27, Pelegrino 1-53, Hochstein 2-4, Aikin 5-54, Bauman 1-6, Oladunmoye 1-2, Choi 1-0. TOTAL TEAM YARDS: Prairie Ridge 598, Grayslake North 475. Sophomore score: Prairie Ridge 37, Grayslake North 7.