Rodriguez leads Immaculate Conception to win
In the often overamplified world of football, a little understatement can be refreshing.
"It was a pretty good game, I guess," said Immaculate Conception junior Carlos Rodriguez, who on 10 carries ran for 190 yards and 3 touchdowns, returned an interception for a touchdown, made 2 tackles for loss, saved a touchdown on kickoff team and executed a perfect pooch kickoff.
In their second-round Class 2A game at Lewis Stadium in Elmhurst, Rodriguez and the 15th-seeded Knights beat No. 7 Lena-Winslow 43-22.
Running backs Gonzalez and Paul Hornstra and quarterback Will Cronin led an option offense that gained 353 yards in a first half IC led 43-0. The defense held the Panthers to 54 yards in that span and for the game limited 1,500-yard rusher Wes Ertmer to 36 yards on 12 carries.
Ertmer and Zach Edmund scored fourth-quarter touchdowns against IC's second- and third-team defense.
As IC (7-4) earned its first quarterfinal berth since 2005, Lena coach Ric Arand hinted the Knights are on the same course as their 2002 Class 3A championship squad.
"That IC team, I told their coach (Bill Schmidt) after the game, is the most physically dominating team we've played in my 12 years here," Arand said. "Probably the last team we saw like that was when they beat us about six years ago. But I think this team's better than that team."
On the third play from scrimmage Rodriguez blew through Lena's 4-4 defense 65 yards for a touchdown. The Knights led 14-0 late in the first quarter on a 4-yard touchdown run by Hornstra.
Gonzalez then sent a high pooch kick covered by Nick Stam at the 39-yard line of Lena (8-3). Soon after Hornstra followed tackle Dan Delaney and tight end Erik Hansen 4 yards for a touchdown. Jose Godinez's kick gave IC a 21-0 lead at 10:13 of the second quarter.
"We just ran hard and the linemen did their job, obviously. The linemen were pushing people around all game," said quarterback Will Cronin, who ran for 84 yards and Hornstra for 65 behind Delaney, Stam, Matt Purdom, Robert Rivera, Marco Medina, Josh Fenton and tight ends Hansen and Antonio Taylor.
Next time out Rodriguez ran 35 yards for a touchdown. Two plays later Taylor forced a hurried pass Rodriguez picked off and ran 15 yards into the end zone.
Rodriguez added a 1-yard touchdown run with 35.9 seconds left in the half. A fire drill extra-point pass to Taylor from Cronin made the score 43-0, essentially sending IC into the quarterfinals against No. 3 Bureau Valley, a 12-6 winner over Morrison in four overtimes.
"When we're doing what we're supposed to be doing and we're coached to be doing, we're tough to stop," Purdom said.