Marist cleans up on Schaumburg

Mike Perish's mom doesn't need to wash her son's jersey for next week's game against Naperville Central.

The Marist senior quarterback was not touched all night Saturday in Chicago. His offensive line allowed him to complete 19-of-29 passes for 355 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 41-14 Class 8A first-round playoff victory against visiting Schaumburg.

No. 13 Schaumburg started the scoring when junior quarterback Mark Iannotti kept the snap and took it up the middle for the 15-yard touchdown.

No. 4 Marist (8-2) responded on the next possession when McKinley Moore (15 carries, 87 yards, 1 TD) scored from 3 yards to tie the game at 7-7.

The Redhawks went on a tear, scoring the next five touchdowns of the game. Three of those touchdowns went to Perish's favorite target, Dan Piko. Piko caught 10 passes for 236 yards and had touchdown catches of 20, 87 and 19 yards.

"We have good chemistry," said Perish. "We've worked hard all year long, through last winter, the spring, summer and this season."

As Perish and Piko walked off the field together, no one would've guessed that Perish even played when standing next to Piko, who was covered in mud.

"It's funny he's so clean," Piko said. "But I guess it's always a good thing for your quarterback to be clean."

The Saxons finished the year at 6-4 and head coach Mark Stilling was proud of his team.

"If you go back to August, no one thought we would be playing now," he said of the school's third playoff trip in four seasons.

Stilling was impressed with the performance of Marist and gave them a lot of credit for the victory.

"The offensive line was tremendous. We gave them a lot of looks, but they were prepared," he said. "You can still see [Perish's] numbers."