East St. Louis overwhelms Richards right from the start in 6A

EAST ST. LOUIS – The final score doesn’t really tell the story of how dominating East St. Louis was in beating Richards 48-0 on Saturday to win its 6A semifinal game and set up a championship showdown with Geneva next weekend.

After all, there are a lot of blowouts in the playoffs, though not usually in the semifinals.

In this case, yardage and first downs are better indicators.

The Flyers piled up 415 yards, 267 in the first half when such things mattered. Richards gained 31 yards – 22 in the air, 9 on the ground on 24 carries – across 48 minutes, the last 17:39 of which were played with the clock running.

Richards (11-2) managed five first downs, three on Flyers penalties on one second-half drive. East St. Louis (12-1) had 19 first downs.

The differences were many, but skill at multiple positions for the Flyers and dominance in line play were the two that stuck out. East St. Louis controlled each side of the ball, meaning the Flyers could play their game and prevent the Bulldogs from playing theirs.

“Our line play’s been great all season,” Flyers coach Darren Sunkett said. “For 13 weeks, these guys have been playing their tails off. Now we’ve got one more, and we’re looking for them to play the same way as all season.”

Flyers running back TaRyan Martin is especially grateful. The offensive line – including standouts Terrell Berryhill, Shamon Hamilton and Marquis Sanders – broke open big holes in the second half that allowed him to run 43 and 65 yards for touchdowns.

“Man, it might bring me to tears to talk about those guys,” Martin said. “I’ve had a lot of confidence issues, and they’re the ones who keep me up every day.”

Martin should gain a boost of confidence from his 146-yard showing on nine carries. Larevious “Fresh” Woods also scored twice, while Amir Tillman ran it in from the 9 for a score. Quarterback Kendrick Lyons threw two touchdown passes.

It was one-sided from the start. The Flyers went 65 yards on three plays after receiving the opening kickoff, a 44-yard passing collaboration between Lyons and receiver Kortez Rupert making it 7-0 after 64 seconds.

“Our guys were focused,” Sunkett said. “We knew the job we had to do.”

Richards went nowhere on its first two drives, lost the ball on a kickoff after the Flyers made it 21-0 late in the first quarter and managed its only first down of the opening half on Myles Mitchell’s 3-yard run on fourth-and-2 after East St. Louis had built a 28-0 lead. The Flyers held Richards to 13 first-half yards.

In his final game before college, Mitchell – the Bulldogs’ lead back – gained 6 yards on 14 carries, 9 of which were either for no gain or lost yardage.

“We wanted to try to kind of slow things down, try to run the ball and get a couple yards here, a couple here, a couple here,” Richards coach Tony Sheehan said. “It didn’t work out that way. We’ve been kind of banged up in the front, but you can’t take anything away from them. They’re a good football team.

“It’s a tough one today.”