Coming off of back-to-back losses, the Hoffman Estates football team showed resilience, hanging on to beat cross-town rival Conant 28-14, holding on to the Mayor’s Cup for the sixth straight year.

“We were just tired of losing,” Hoffman Estates receiver Torey Baskin said. “We really locked in this week and made sure that we handled business.”

Hoffman Estates solidified its place in the playoffs, improving to 6-2 and 2-2 in the Mid-Suburban Conference West, while knocking Conant (3-5, 1-3) out of postseason contention.

The Hawks jumped out to a 14-0 lead, but a flurry of scoring to start the second half knotted up the score.

Hoffman Estates Baskin and Landon Ford scored the game’s final two touchdowns to pull away.

“This team fights until the end, whistle to whistle,” Hoffman Estates head coach Tim Heyse said. “But we can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot with turnovers. … That has been our Achilles’ heel the last three weeks. It has to stop.”

Baskin had two big catches in the third. First with a 21-yard reception on fourth down, and then an 11-yard score from Austin Lezniak two plays later.

Baskin had six catches for 104 yards, while Ford rushed for 88 yards and two scores. JMari Jackson also had a touchdown run.

The Cougars marched down to the 4-yard line late in the fourth quarter, but were a yard short on fourth down.

Conant forced three turnovers, including an interception by Anthony Burns and a fumble recovery by Joey Rofus but were unable to capitalize on the turnovers.

All of their offense came at the start of the second half. On the second play of the third, quarterback Tyler Marchese ran for a 77-yard touchdown. A few minutes later he found Sarma Abhimanyu in the end zone for his first completion of the game.

“We asked them play like their hair was on fire,” Conant head coach Anthony Donatucci said. “Just be relentless and take the tempo back. We were fine in the first half, we just shot ourselves in the foot against a good team like Hoffman.”

Nathan Kutella ran for 105 yards, including 78 in the second half.

Conant, however, was unable to get into the end zone in the fourth quarter.

“Their offense really makes you play assignment football,” Heyse said. “One person screws up their assignment or has a bad alignment, big plays can happen. As long as we were staying in our gaps and doing what we were supposed to do, being disciplined, we were fine.”