Michael Dopart, Dom Coronado connect for 2 TDs in Yorkville win over Plainfield Central

PLAINFIELD – Michael Dopart has been tossing passes to Dom Coronado for about a decade.

He tossed a pair to his senior buddy on Friday night in Plainfield as Yorkville blanked Plainfield Central, 28-0, in a Southwest Prairie Conference crossover battle.

“We’ve had a connection since we were 8 years old and each year we’ve gotten better and better,” Dopart said. “We’ve been working hard in the off-season. Ever since we had that loss to Batavia [17-6 in the 7A quarterfinals last year] all our seniors have been working on their routes.”

After forcing Plainfield Central to a quick three-and-out, senior Josh Gettemy made some nice runs to help establish Yorkville’s running game, thus setting up the Dopart-to-Coronado connection.

“We’ve been struggling especially on the running game part so once we got that, it opened up the passing,” Dopart said. “I scrambled out and we did our scrambling drills at practice. I knew I could rely on him to get open and catch the ball and it happened.”

Dopart ran to his left before connecting with Coronado for a 22-yard touchdown with 6:13 left in the opening quarter.

The Foxes failed to take advantage of Gage Range’s pick and ensuing field position on their next drive, but would strike again before half.

Junior Dyllan Malone had a big 28-yard reception for a first down and Gettemy followed with a short run before Coronado turned Dopart’s short screen into a 46-yard touchdown with 4:54 left in the second quarter.

“It’s about teamwork,” Coronado said. “We’ve been doing this ever since we were (little) kids. We just have a strong connection and I think that it just builds.”

Perhaps it’ll help build a winning streak.

“It’s hard to come back from two losses, but this feels good,” Coronado said “We’ll celebrate and get back at it on Monday.”

Yorkville (2-2) extended its lead to 21-0 during a drive that featured a nifty 23-yard reception by Malone from Dopart when the Foxes abruptly went into hurry-up mode. That set up junior Luke Zook who followed his 14-yard run with a 3-yard touchdown with 8:26 left in the third quarter.

“I had almost the whole team blocking for me,” Zook said .”I just had to hit the hole really hard and keep going and keep moving my feet and I’d eventually get in the end zone.”

Junior Ryan Wulff shared similar praise for those before him after he completed the scoring with a 31-yard touchdown run with 1:24 left in the third quarter.

“Our o-line blocked, they made their plays,” he said. “They had a good double team on someone and I just read the hole. All I did was run. They make the plays for me I just run the ball.”

Plainfield Central (1-3) moved the ball at times, but kept punishing the wrong team. Offensively, the Wildcats followed numerous positive yardage plays with penalties. They also turned the ball over twice as junior Dom Recchia had the Foxes second interception of the night.

“We had some good success on both sides of the ball,” Wildcats coach Rob Keane said. “And then we need to clean up mistakes in order to put ourselves in a position where we’re putting points on the board, not leaving points on the field.

“I thought the guys competed,” he continued. “We did some things really well, but a couple of penalties here and there made scoring drives a lot harder. We’ll get into the film room and a week of practice and have an opportunity to fix things and play close to what our level is and that’s our goal.”

The Foxes lost 28-13 at Plainfield Central two years ago.

“They’re well coached and their defense always presents a lot of problems for us,” Foxes coach Dan McGuire said. “They’re very physical and opportunistic. It’s very difficult to play here. His defense forces turnovers and you know how that goes.”

The Foxes didn’t commit any turnovers.

“Starting out strong was something we needed to do and thanks to our defense for that,” McGuire said. “It allowed our offense to get some confidence going. We still have a lot to improve on. We left points on the field in the first half and had far too many penalties.”