Sycamore rolls over Burlington Central
Seventeen seconds was all it took for Burlington Central to fall behind Sycamore on Friday night.
After the Spartans ran nine offensive plays, Sycamore led 28-0 and the rout was on.
The Rockets trailed 42-0 before scoring the final two touchdowns, losing to the Spartans, 42-16, in nonconference play in Sycamore.
"You can't let good teams get up on you (four) scores in their home opener and expect good things to happen," Rockets coach Aaron Wichman said.
The Spartans' Patrick Eby returned the opening kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown, winning a fan $10,000 as well. After a Central punt, Tommy Nice scampered 50 yards on the Spartans second play from scrimmage for a score with 8:01 left in the first. Ryan Bartels connected with Trevor Mathey for a 68-yard score on the first play of Sycamore's second drive with 6:11 remaining in the first quarter. Then on the Spartans' third possession, Bartels scored on a 41-yard run on the sixth play of the drive with 26.2 seconds left in the first for a 28-0 lead.
"We got out of the gates and that's tough to come back from," Sycamore coach Joe Ryan said. "That's demoralizing. It makes it's tough, but their kids kept fighting."
In the first quarter, Sycamore (2-0) had 215 yards of total offense, not including Eby's kickoff return. The Rockets (0-2) had 16 yards of offense.
Following a scoreless second quarter, Central went three-and-out on the first possession of the second half. The Spartans followed with a seven-play drive, capped by a 9-yard touchdown from Bartels to Jake Turner for a 35-0 lead. On Sycamore's next possession, it took the Spartans six plays to drive 56 yards to a 42-0 lead. Trent Greer scored on a 24-yard run with 3:10 left in the third to start the running clock.
The Rockets' Brandon Westergaard scored on a 62-yard run and also ran in the 2-point conversion attempt with 1:36 left in the third to cut the deficit to 42-8. Tre Llanes scored with 2:35 remaining on a 1-yard run. Westergaard again ran in the conversion attempt to complete the scoring.
"We fight hard and we play hard. It's just that our execution hasn't been real good," Wichman said. "I think, again this week, once we settled down, we did some good things."
Westergaard led the Rockets with 86 rushing yards on 7 carries. Llanes finished with 63 yards rushing, 56 coming on the final drive.
Bartels completed 9 of 10 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns for the Spartans.