Prospect thwarts York

Sportscaster Dick Enberg's trademark call is, "Oh myyyyyy." Prospect's trademark call might be, "Oh Miles!"

Miles Osei, that is. The 6-foot-2 senior quarterback accounted for nearly 400 yards in total offense, and Prospect needed each and every one of them in Friday night's season-opening 41-27 football win over visiting York.

The wild, free-wheeling affair was marred by 31 combined penalties for 237 yards that left both Osei and head coach Brent Pearlman moaning over having to eliminate them by next week against Schaumburg. But there are a lot of things that will likely need to be augmented as well.

For all his yardage, Osei distributes the ball effectively to his many weapons. He opened with a 62-yard scoring toss to speedy Peter Bonahoom. He found him twice more, from 26 yards out to make it 26-7 in the second quarter, and from 1 yard out for the victory-cushioning score in the third period. Each of Osei's 14 completions (for 275 yards) was a virtual feather landing perfectly over an outstretched defender's hands to his intended target.

He got support from Joe Mack (44-yard TD run in the first period), Steven Dazzo (23-yard TD reception in the second) and Grant DePalma, who rushed 9 times for 73 yards.

"We came out attacking," said Osei, with a TV crew awaiting him. "Penalties definitely killed us, but we'll get better and better."

"Penalties hurt, no question," said Pearlman, whose team committed 17 for 107 yards, and had three others wiped out on offsetting calls. However, "We have a pretty good group of skill kids," he noted.

And while the defense surrendered 373 yards, 180 to slick running back Mike DeBernardis, the Knights also made some huge stops, including two on downs inside the 10 late in the game. First, they forced and recovered a DeBernardis fumble at the goal line as he appeared to be going in. Then they stopped quarterback Dan Cleary in an almost identical situation later as he tried to bootleg into the front right corner on fourth-and-goal from the 2.

Defensive back Patrick Inserra fell on DeBernardis' fumble while defensive lineman P.J. Kennedy earlier had another key fumble recovery and placekicker/jack-of-all-trades John Coen had a key interception that would've been a Knights' TD had his return not been wiped out by a penalty.

"We had some big fourth-down plays," from the defense, said Osei.

"From the beginning, we got beat off the ball," said a disappointed DeBernardis. "We dug ourselves a hole really early," falling behind 20-0. But his running, Cleary's revived second-half performance at QB and Mark Reyes' 85-yard kickoff return for a TD kept the Dukes within striking distance.