Oswego married to Treshon Weddington, eases past Oswego East

Sloppy turf. Howling crosswind out of the west. Dropping temperatures.

Conditions Friday night at Oswego East were custom made for Oswego’s power running game, and Treshon Weddington jumped on board.

The senior tailback followed his veteran line and ran 28 times for 136 yards and five touchdowns in the Panthers’ 40-0 win in the 10th edition of this crosstown rivalry.

“Every night our mentality is we want to run the ball,” Oswego senior Jacob Shepherd said. “We have three Division I linemen and we each want to pound the ball. That’s always the Panther mentality.

“Impose our will is what we want to do. That’s what we’ve been training for since freshman year as offensive linemen. All we want to do is go out there and run block.”

Shepherd is joined by Erik Mikkelson, Cody Bezik, Jared Connors and Austin Warner on that line.

“The five guys up front made sure that happened,” Oswego coach Brian Cooney said after his team won its 25th straight Southwest Prairie Conference game. “Tackle to tackle, this is one of the best lines we’ve ever had here.”

The first drive of each half for the Panthers (5-1, 4-0) illustrated the point. Oswego marched 64 yards on 13 straight running plays on its first possession of the game, capped by Weddington’s 5-yard TD on a drive that ate up 5:33 on the clock.

The Panthers led 26-0 at intermission, courtesy of second-quarter scoring runs of 25, 7 and 3 yards from Weddington. Oswego then ate up 6:19, using 12 plays to march 60 yards on the opening drive of the third quarter, capped by a 6-yard TD run from Weddington.

“When you come in and you know what a team’s gonna do and they know you know and they still do it, they’re a good, physical team,” said Oswego East coach Tyson LeBlanc, whose injury-depleted offense struggled to move the ball.

The Wolves (1-5, 0-4) were limited to 55 yards rushing and 89 passing from junior quarterback James Kidd, who started the season fourth on LeBlanc’s depth chart.

“Right now we’re just trying to find something that’s gonna work for us,” LeBlanc said. “We’re hoping to get some guys back next week that were out this week. We counted Wednesday in practice, we had 14 guys that either started or played significant minutes that weren’t practicing (due to injury).

“I don’t care what level of football you’re playing, that’s tough to overcome.”

The Wolves were also hurt by turnovers, two interceptions and two lost fumbles. Oswego lost a pair of fumbles, but sealed the verdict with a running clock when Mason Memming returned a punt 35 yards for the final score with 11:48 left in the game.

Junior Carter Turnquist threw for 43 yards, filling in again for injured Oswego starting quarterback Steven Frank (leg).

“He was back to playing with confidence, which he’d struggled with the last couple weeks,” Cooney said. “We know he’s capable of managing the game.”