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Offense sparks Palatine past Prospect

When sophomore wide receiver Johnny O'Shea caught his only two passes for touchdowns in the second quarter, it benefitted Palatine's football team in more ways than one.

"They make big plays, they get us going," said Pirates senior middle linebacker Michael Williams of the Pirates' offense. "It's exciting to know we've got the lead. Now the other team is playing from behind. The ball is in our court. We just have to make the plays and set the tone for our offense to come back again."

The Pirates' offense came back each time Prospect scored on Saturday night in Mt. Prospect and Palatine won its third straight game with a 35-14 victory over Prospect at George Gattas Memorial Stadium.

The Pirates have also bounced back superbly from an opening-game loss to state power Stevenson.

"I think that fired us up," Williams said of the 26-24 loss to Stevenson. "It showed us we can play with some of the top teams in the state. It makes us want to come out and show what Palatine football is."

The Pirates were well aware of Prospect football.

"They are good at what they do," said Palatine coach Rick Splitt. "We know Prospect does a great job offensively so we just wanted to play good, hard-nosed football."

Palatine (3-1) did it from the start, marching 67 yards on the game's first possession for a touchdown.

QB Zach Oles (161 yards passing, 98 rushing), went 3 yards up the middle and Michael Hilmer kicked his first of 5 extra points to give the visitors a 7-0 lead with 7:40 left in the quarter.

But the Knights (1-3) answered with a lengthy and even more-time consuming drive.

Starting at their own 22, they put together a 20-play scoring drive that didn't end until 9:35 was left in the second quarter.

Senior QB Matt Drew (91 yards rushing) scored on a keeper from 7 yards out to tie the game at 7-7.

Palatine then decided to step up the pace.

The Pirates took only five plays to reach the end zone.

The drive included a 27-yard pass from Oles to Courtland Cornelius, a 25-yard scamper by Joshua Turner (86 yards) and a 7-yard TD pass from Oles to O'Shea with eight minutes still left in the half for the 14-7 lead.

After another time-consuming drive by Prospect that started at its own 13, the Knights eventually quick-punted on fourth down at the Pirates' 37.

The ball rolled into the end zone and Palatine took over at its 20 with only 55 seconds left in the half.

Hardly fazed, Oles covered the 80 yards in seven plays, capped by his 13-yard TD pass to O'Shea with 9.1 seconds left giving Palatine a 21-7 cushion at intermission.

"Our offensive line (Andrew Martino, Carson Walker, Matthew Kerlin, Christian Arenas and Jason Zych) did a great job, " Splitt said. "They created lot of great things for us."

Prospect opened the second half with a 72-yard scoring drive, capped by Bobby Jarosz' 3-yard run off left tackle to make it 21-14.

Palatine was knocking at the door again when it drove to the Knights' 23, where Andrew Shafis recovered a fumble to halt the drive.

But the Pirates' defense didn't allow another point and the Pirates put the game away with 1 and 3-yard TD runs by Turner in the fourth quarter.

The second one was set up when Prospect fumbled on a kickoff return and Myles Staples recovered at the Knights' 17.

Three running plays to Turner resulted in the 35-14 lead.

"I think defensively we did some good things," Splitt said. "They had two big drives in the first and second half that they caught us on."

Jarosz rushed for 112 yards while Drew gained 91 on the ground and threw for 46 as the Knights picked up 21 first downs.

"We had plenty of opportunities to take care of business," said Prospect coach Mike Sebestyen. "We've got to find ways to finish offensively and we did not. We've got to be more detail-oriented with the things we are doing. It's just going back to the drawing board at this point."

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