St. Edward makes it 7-0
As the St. Edward football team gets to rewrite history every week with win after win that inches the Green Wave closer to its 9-0 goal, head coach Mike Rolando learns something new about his team each week.
For the second-straight week of scoreless football and third time this season, the Wave (7-0, 3-0) tossed out possibly is toughest competition to date — Ridgewood — 38-0 at Greg True Field Friday in Elgin in Metro Suburban East action.
In this case, a potent run game by Ridgewood (3-4, 2-1) was held to 30 yards while its pass dipped into the negatives (-11 yards) to total just 19 yards of offense with only 1 first down to show. All this by 5-man defensive front headlined by Josh Von Rohr, Jake French, Chris Kelly and Augustus Nottolini that held the Rebels to an 0-for-12 mark on drives, their deepest reaching the Wave 18 in the first half via a kickoff return.
“You never know what you got when your winning games like this, you keep waiting for that test and I thought tonight was a pretty good test and our kids responded real well early,” Rolando said. “We were real concerned about their running game. They ran the ball real well in the games we saw on film. We put five guys on the line and I don't think the linebackers had to clean up much. I think the D-line got to all those tackles.”
The front 5 made the big plays and dominated the interior consistently as Von Rohr notched a sack for a three-and-out on the game's first drive while Kelly and French pressured Ridgewood quarterback Chris Jacobsen and running back Chris Serna relentlessly. French's blocked punt that he recovered at the Rebels' 5-yard line set up his brother Joe French's 23-yard field goal to put St. Edward up 24-0 with 6 minutes to go in the second quarter. Serna rushed just 11 times for 38 yards and Jacobsen was pulled at half.
“We knew they were pretty athletic on the D-line, we've gone against some pretty big schools so far and been able to handle them pretty well,” said Rebels coach Chris Zack. “I think we were a little caught off guard with a little bit of their quickness on the interior D-line.”
The Wave's pressure also forced a safety when Ridgewood botched a snap on a punt and threw the ball out of bounds in the end zone.
“Every week we try to improve and we watch film and we see how is this offense different from the last one, how can we adapt to it and we're really doing well with the 5-man front, I think coach did a great job with that,” Von Rohr said. “(French) can really shoot through those gaps while other linemen pickup some room.”
“I just think that was just another play that happened, I think I got lucky,” French said. “I think what really made our defense tonight was everyone coming together, pulling ourselves up and stopping them whatever chance we got to. We're not the biggest team around but we strive on working on speed and more than power. “
Talk about speed. Don't forget about Dwayne Allen, who ran 17 times for 185 yards with touchdown runs of 40 and 70 yards. He also added 2 catches for 48 yards, including a 35-yard touchdown reception where he broke a tackle in the early part of the second quarter. St. Edward moved the ball on offense efficiently in the first half scoring 32 points. That included Jack Tierney's 5-yard touchdown run in the first quarter for a 14-0 lead and Nick Duffy's (6 catches, 75 yards) sort-of-miracle catch where he wrestled the pass away from Ridgewood's Mike Ortiz at the goal line to make it 32-0. Joe Mullen went 15-for-32 for 163 yards and 2 touchdowns as the Wave piled up 458 yards of offense.