Oak Lawn called time out to set its defense on a third-and-22 at the Richards 35.
It did little to slow the Bulldogs.
A screen pass from Hasan Muhammad-Rogers to Pat Doyle turned into a 65-yard touchdown and a 26-0 lead. Richards went on to post a 46-21 South Suburban Red road win over Oak Lawn on Friday.
The Bulldogs’ sixth consecutive win in the series pushed their marks to 3-1 overall and 2-0 in the league. Oak Lawn dropped to 1-3, 0-2. The Spartans have allowed 118 points during a three-game losing streak.
“I thought we played a good first half, did a lot of good things, then got complacent,” Richards coach Tony Sheehan said. “We have to learn to put the hammer down.”
“I thought we competed tonight,” Oak Lawn coach Sean Lucas said. “We’re proud of the way we competed. We didn’t back down.”
Class 6A runner-up Richards has won back-to-back games after a 22-19 loss to Geneva.
“Our defense has been very good for the last three weeks,” Sheehan said. “We put our defense in some bad spots tonight and we can’t keep doing that. But, we have some young guys on defense who are getting better every week.”
The long pass play to Doyle was one of five touchdown tosses by Muhammad-Rogers to four different receivers.
“In the last few years, we haven’t run screens very well,” Sheehan said of the call. “It’s good to see we can do that. When (Doyle) gets the ball in space, he can do some special things. He’s a young sophomore with a lot of up side.”
“I just got some good blocking from the receivers and my linemen,” Doyle said. “We have some great blockers out there and that helps a lot.”
Leading 26-7, Roque Castro’s acrobatic interception led to a 4-yard touchdown pass from Muhammad-Rogers to Ryan Willett and a 33-7 lead at the intermission. Muhammad-Rogers completed 14-of-21 passes for 273 yards.
Willett also caught an 11-yard touchdown pass. Spencer Tears’ 24-yard touchdown catch started the scoring. Doyle, who led the Bulldogs with 78 yards rushing on 11 carries, also ran for a score as did Muhammed-Rogers.
Joe Robinson intercepted a pass and caught a pair of touchdown passes from Joe Cosenza for the Spartans. Cosenza (15-of-26 passing, 132 yards) also threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Steve Anaya for Oak Lawn.
After falling behind 26-0, Oak Lawn outscored Richards 21-20.
“We would have had to play a near perfect game to beat them,” Lucas said. “I couldn’t ask for anything more. We’re going to continue to build.”
