St. Edward steamrolls Chicago Clark
Dwayne Allen rushed for 224 yards and 4 touchdowns. And that was just in the first half.
For an encore, St. Edward's junior tailback returned the second-half kickoff for his fifth touchdown, and set up another score with a 50-yard run before taking the fourth quarter off.
Allen finished with 274 yards on just 14 carries, leading the Green Wave past Chicago Clark, 50-0, in nonconference action at Greg True Field Friday night.
"We came out in a little drought in the first couple minutes," said Allen. "The line picked it up a lot and they opened some holes for me. The quarterback Saveon (Smith) did a lot of good things, running downfield with me."
Allen scored on runs of 2, 43, 12, and 10 yards. Smith scored on a 2-yard run, and Benjamin Harrington scored the Wave's final touchdown on a 39-yard scamper.
Although the Wave (2-0) had much to celebrate, coach Mike Rolando was concerned about recurring mistakes, particularly penalties. The Wave was flagged 9 times for 84 yards.
"Really all that's on my mind right now is the mistakes offensively - a lot of penalties," Rolando said. "There's a lot of things we wanted to clean up. We'll focus on that and we'll clean it up."
Rolando couldn't find much wrong with the defense.
"I'm really proud of the defensive effort again," he said. "We've got some good athletes. I thought we were there every step of the way on the pass plays, stepping up and making plays on the run games. I think our line on both sides of the ball did well, and if we can win that line battle, I think we win a lot of football games."
The Wave defense pitched its second straight shutout to open the season. St. Edward held the Eagles to 41 net yards and 6 first downs. Smith and James Harkins posted interceptions and Anthony Salvadore had a pair of sacks against two Clark quarterbacks.
Allen set the tone for the evening on the Wave's first offensive play, racing 49 yards around right end. He was finally dragged down at the 2-yard line, but finished the drive on the next play. Later in the first quarter, Allen accounted for a 43-yard, 1-play drive with his second TD run.