St. Edward can't solve IC's running game

There was no secret to the St. Edward-Immaculate Conception football game played Saturday under a steady downpour at Elmhurst College.

The team that ran the ball more effectively with the fewest mistakes would win.

Immaculate Conception (2-1, 1-0) gained 227 yards rushing to 71 for St. Edward, earning a 22-0 victory in the teams' Suburban Catholic Conference opener.

"You run, you play good defense like we did and you're going to be in and win a lot of football games," said Knights coach Bill Schmidt.

Just 2 completed passes - both from IC quarterback Will Cronin, who hit Joe Burke for a 29-yarder on the first touchdown drive - left little question of philosophy.

"Just pound it to them. As long as no one can stop us we're just going to keep pounding them," said IC back Paul Hornstra, who joined Carlos Rodriguez and Robert Peachey on the march behind linemen Matt Purdom, Robert Rivera, Marco Medina, Josh Fenton and Dan Delaney.

St. Edward (2-1, 0-1) stifled itself early. The Green Wave, led by backs Jimmy Mathisen and Moises Quiroga - who also intercepted a pass - fumbled on four of its first five possessions and five times total.

St. Edward lost only one fumble to go with 2 interceptions, but when Mathisen earned the Wave's initial first down midway through the second quarter, IC already owned a 16-0 lead.

"You don't get a lot of possessions in a game like this and we squandered most of them away," said St. Edward coach Mike Rolando. "We've got to take care of the ball better. We just played about as bad as we could play."

He said that Monday's death of Richard Budish, father of St. Edward junior tackle Rich Budish, had little bearing on the outcome.

"The kids gave that situation its due," Rolando said, "but you've got to focus better than this at practice and in the game. We play like we practice and we proved that today."

IC itself fumbled the ball away on its first series but scored on its second, on Cronin's 7-yard option keep. The Knights led 16-0 on Rodriguez' 20-yard run. He added his second 2-point conversion run at 7:32 of the second quarter.

IC effectively shut the door with a monster 17-play scoring drive spanning 9:30 of the third and fourth quarters. Hornstra ran between center Medina and right guard Fenton from a yard out with 8:36 left to play.

"We were pretty confident that we weren't going to get stopped," Medina said. "We knew we were going to run the ball on them."