Clifton Central finished fifth in the Vermilion Valley Conference a season ago, trailing Bismarck-Henning, Momence, Westville and Oakwood, all teams they lost to during the season.

With Friday’s 35-21 homecoming win over Oakwood, Clifton Central (4-0) now has wins over three of those teams, as well as one over Georgetown-Ridge Farm, with only Westville to go on Oct. 3.

Senior quarterback Brady Shule threw four touchdown passes on Friday, giving him 15 on the season and 14 in the last three games. He said it’s nice to take down some of the VVC teams that have had the better of his own in the past.

“It feels pretty darn good,” he said. “I’ve never beaten some of these teams before, so it feels pretty good to finally come out here my senior year and beat them.”

Central went up 13-0 in their first two possessions of the game, on a touchdown run from Evan Cox and then a 35-yard pass from Shule to Kaden Neveu, but Oakwood fought back throughout the second quarter to go up up 14-13.

A 40-minute weather delay ended play with just over two minutes to go until halftime. Neither team scored once play resumed, and with homecoming festivities taking place at halftime, approximately 80 minutes elapsed with only two minutes coming off the game clock.

But once the second half finally got underway, it was all Central.

“We just told them to stay positive,” Central head coach Jeff Perzee said. “Who cares what the score was? We knew that we’re a good team and we just made a lot of mental errors. We just kind of relaxed, coaches went in and talked and made some adjustments, and luckily they worked.”

The hosts outscored Oakwood 22-7 in the second half, with Shule throwing three more touchdown passes, two more to Neveu and one to Andrew Rohlwing.

The defense allowed just one second-half touchdown to a team that was averaging 42 points per game during a 3-0 start to the season, and that lone touchdown came after Oakwood intercepted Shule.

Central’s defensive front kept nearly constant pressure on quarterback Alex Wallace throughout the second half, making it difficult for Oakwood to climb back into the game once Central started pulling away.

The defense forced two Oakwood turnovers in the second half, an interception by Derek Meier and a fumble recovered by Blake Chandler, while also forcing three turnovers on downs and a punt on Oakwood’s non-scoring drives.

“Our grit, like the coaches have been saying, was there, and our effort was there,” junior linebacker Kaedyn Meents, who had two of the team’s six sacks in the game, said. “We had to switch up the offense a little bit to stop them, but we got the job done for sure.”

The offensive execution was certainly solid enough to pick up a win, but Central had just 51 net rushing yards on 25 attempts, forcing Shule into a his busiest passing game of the year.

After averaging about 17 pass attempts per game in the first three games this season, Shule threw the ball 38 times on Friday alone. He completed 22 of those passes for 333 yards, just 202 yards less than his season total coming into the game, and those four touchdowns.

He also threw three interceptions, but more often than not when he hurled the ball downfield, there was someone in a blue helmet waiting to make the catch.

“I made a few mistakes myself, but my wide receivers made up for them,” Shule said. “They had a hell of a game and were able to catch the ball and run the ball pretty darn good.”

Neveu had a huge game, recording eight catches for 154 yards and three touchdowns. Freshman Cash Minard had three catches for 59 yards while Rohlwing had four for 55 yards and a touchdown. Meier added four catches for 37 yards and Chandler had three for 28 yards.

Neveu said the team’s goal is simple after their 4-0 start to the season.

“Just keep going,” he said. “Don’t stop.”