Barnas, Harper trip COD
When opportunity knocked, Harper was ready.
The Hawks took advantage of College of DuPage miscues to walk away with a 28-14 win in Glen Ellyn on Saturday afternoon.
"We knew this would be a great game," said Harper coach Dragan Teonic. "There is no easy game in this conference."
Harper (4-0, 3-0 Midwest Football Conference East Division) received an early break when John Baldwin and Troy Jones each got a piece of Matt Freke's 27 yard field-goal attempt.
The Hawks went 80 yards in 7 plays to score on quarterback Garrett Barnas' 54-yard touchdown pass to Baldwin, who leapt over a defender and raced into the end zone for a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.
Baldwin led the Hawks with 5 catches for 107 yards.
"That was a 10-point turnaround," Teonic said. "That kind of set the tone."
The Chaparrals (2-2, 2-2) tied the score at 7-7 early in the third quarter on a 2-yard pass from Jon Daniels (16-for-29, 232 yards, 2 interceptions) to Brandon Venson.
Barnas marched Harper down the field and found Tafari Mahou all alone on missed coverage for a 23-yard touchdown with 8:56 left in the third quarter.
"A play like that can't happen," said COD coach Fred Fimbers. "We just made too many mistakes against a good team. We took away some of the running game from them. But, with Barnas always touching the ball, that was tough to deal with."
The Hawks' Senica Jackson scored from the 1-yard line with 3:19 left in the quarter to cap an 82-yard, 10-play drive for a 21-7 lead.
COD bounced back to score on Daniels' 60-yard pass to Terriun Crump with 1:43 left in the quarter that narrowed the lead to 21-14.
Jones made a key fumble recovery with 12:18 left in the game to set up Barnas' 4-yard run that completed the scoring.
Barnas rushed 12 times for 55 yards and completed 20 of 33 passes for 292 yards and 1 interception.
"The key know is for us to take it one game at a time and stay healthy," Barnas said. "A lot of the time when they blitzed, I had to rely on my legs to scramble. A lot of our yards came that way today."