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Sports
Taking a stand : Sports : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisTaking a stand
| Oswego East scores 14 points in fourth quarter to defeat Rich South
| by Kristin Sharp
| 8/30/2012
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With new head football coaches on both sidelines last Friday night, the non-conference meeting between Oswego East and Rich South was filled with unknowns.
Players were adapting to new playbooks and teams had minimal scouting reports on their opponents.
In the end, Oswego East's 14-point fourth quarter was enough to hold off a threatening Rich South for a 35-20 victory on the road.
"We definitely did some things well. There's still room for improvement, but we did some things well. It's encouraging," Oswego East head coach Tyson LeBlanc said after recording his first victory.
Despite being shut out from the red zone twice to start the game, the Oswego East offense persevered and finally crossed into the end zone on its third possession of the game.
"We got down to the red zone twice, threw an interception our first time down there and the second time we didn't convert on fourth-and-2," LeBlanc said. "They had an offensive pass interference penalty, which is loss of yardage and loss of down. They didn't realize it was loss of down and they went for it on fourth down thinking it was third down."
Oswego East took possession on the Rich South 8-yard line and junior running back Branden Lowe scored on the first play from scrimmage.
Senior Chase Skenandore added to Oswego East's scoreboard with a 9-yard touchdown run in the second quarter before senior quarterback Sean Kennedy had a 14-yard touchdown run at the end of the first half to put the Wolves ahead 21-0.
"We came out a little flat in the second half and they scored a touchdown," LeBlanc said.
Oswego East junior Jake Gladysz had a 30-yard interception return for a touchdown with 8:00 remaining in the third quarter, but Rich South responded immediately with a 62-yard touchdown pass.
Rich South kicked off to Oswego East, and the Wolves were back in the end zone when Kennedy connected with junior tight end Conor Nalley for a 78-yard touchdown.
Rich South scored with 1:46 remaining in the game, but it wasn't enough to threaten Oswego East's victory as the Wolves ran out the clock.
Skenandore compiled 207 total yards including 11 catches for 156 yards and 10 carries for 51 yards. Kennedy threw for 258 yards with an additional 64 yards on the ground.
Defensively, senior Gunnar Mlsna had six tackles and junior Bernie Laskowski had two sacks in the game.
"We did some things well. There's some things we need to clean up," LeBlanc said. "As our schedule goes, it only gets tougher."
Oswego East will now prepare for Friday's home opener against Oak Lawn (0-1), which will give the Wolves an opportunity to improve to 2-0 for the second consecutive season. The Wolves defeated Oak Lawn 14-7 in the 2011 meeting.
Oak Lawn is coming off a 33-24 loss to Niles North last Friday.
"The spirits are high, but the thing we tried to explain to the kids is that's one step toward our goal and not to be satisfied even though we played well," LeBlanc said. "We broke out the film and we're going to go through our game plan. Their stats were pretty balanced, but they were primarily a run team. They're a physical team and they're a little bit bigger up front than the Rich South team we played. They do a good job mixing it up. If we can continue to be balanced offensively, I think we'll have some success."
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