Prospect rolls over Elk Grove

Ken Grams has announced every varsity football game played at Elk Grove High School.

But you can bet there haven't been too many times when his first words to the crowd were "good morning."

Due to the inclement weather on Friday, Prospect's visit to Elk Grove was stalled until Saturday's 11 a.m. kickoff.

That kickoff sure woke everyone up as Elk Grove recovered a fumble at the Prospect 31-yard line.

It gave the host Grenadiers some early momentum and midway through the first quarter they took a 7-0 lead.

But undefeated Prospect scored the next 42 points en route to a 42-7 triumph that made the Knights playoff eligible for the second straight year.

"Last year, we didn't clinch a playoff berth until Week 9," said Knights powerhouse junior running back Luke Zardzin, who rushed for 121 yards and 2 touchdowns. "So it's pretty awesome to qualify this early."

The Grens (1-4, 0-1) had the Knights (5-0, 1-0) on their heels when a 49-yard drive ended up with junior Ian Ridge's 28-yard touchdown run for a 7-0 lead at the 5:15 mark of the first quarter.

"We knew we were going to have to overcome adversity," Zardzin said of the quick deficit. "This wasn't the ideal situation, playing on a Saturday morning instead of Friday night, and it was raining. So we really had to focus and I guess that focus didn't really show up until late in first quarter but it showed up."

The Knights got on the board as late as possible in the first quarter.

Gary Moeller stepped out of the pocket and found Noah Marx on a 22-yard crossing pattern to make it 6-6 with no time left in the period.

Prospect took the lead for good with 4:27 left in the half as Zardzin completed a 62-yard drive with a 12-yard TD scamper. He then ran for the 2-point conversion to make it 14-7.

Less than four minutes later, after Ryan Traviolia's blocked punt was recovered by Justin Carreon, the Knights found the end zone again.

This time Zardzin powered through the left side for a 10-yard TD run with under 20 seconds left in the half. Ben Sahakian's kick made it 21-7.

"It's all due to the big boys up front," Zardzin said. "They do a good job for me. We had good practices with them this week and it really showed up."

"Luke has had a great season," said Knights coach Dan DeBoeuf. "He's just a great kid and it couldn't happen to a better person. He has worked really hard to be where he is."

Carreon was where he had to be early in the fourth quarter when Adam Mekky blocked a punt. Carreon scooped up the ball and raced 32 yards to end zone for a 28-0 lead.

Prospect capped the scoring with two fourth-quarter TD runs by Moeller.

"I think our defense did a pretty good job early but it kind of took a toll after a while," said EG coach Miles Osei. "Our special teams kind of hurt us a bit and it was a culmination of other things."

Grens running back Joe Gaskill was injured early in the game.

"Charlie (Janczak) stepped in and tried to conduct the offense the best he could," Osei added. "I thought he did a pretty good job."

Ridge finished with 213 yards from 35 carries.

"He had a pretty big game," Osei said. "He's a special kid and our line does a good job sorting things out, starting with our center. We just want to continue to get better."

Prospect knows it has to keep getting better with key conference games ahead, including next week's showdown at undefeated Hersey.

"We have our toughest game ahead of us," Zardzin said. "The next few weeks are going to be a battle so we've really got to focus on practice weeks and maybe we'll turn into a really special unit."

"We had about as bad a start as you can have with that turnover right away," DeBoeuf said. "We talked a lot about having energy and I thought our energy was fine. We just had some mistakes happen but I was proud that our guys were able to bounce back."

"This feels good. This (playoff berth) was one our goals. Getting it done in the first five games is nice but we've got some work to do."