OSWEGO – Minooka used 14 plays and consumed over eight minutes of the third quarter only to see its second-half opening drive stall at Oswego East on Friday night.

No need to worry when your defense is doing its job at an optimum level and you can throw the ball in the general vicinity of Trevor Hudak.

Hudak’s 66-yard catch and running touchdown late in the third quarter helped the Indians pull away, 33-10, in what essentially was a must-win Southwest Prairie West game for them.

“We told them to put the ball in play because his catch radius is unbelievable,” Minooka coach Matthew Harding said. “It’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

Leading, 14-10, at halftime, the Indians marched 71 yards in 8:18 before turning the ball over on downs.

Oswego East (5-1, 1-1) got the stop it needed but proceeded to go three-and-out, giving the ball right back to the Indians who responded with quarterback Ethan Murphy’s touchdown pass to Hudak that made it 20-10 with 1:06 left in the third quarter.

“They were playing man coverage so I felt pretty confident,” Hudak said. “[Murphy] was confident in throwing it up, and I made a good play. The safety came over the top, and I cut up and scored a touchdown.”

The Wolves followed that drive by moving the chains a bit themselves, but facing a fourth down on the Minooka 37-yard-line, quarterback Tre Jones was sacked by Louie Johnson.

“We just kept up the pressure and did our jobs,” Johnson said. “That’s what our defense boils down to – you do your job and play hard every single play. I fill my gap and the guy fills the gap next to me and they’re not going anywhere.”

The Wolves rarely had the ball to go anywhere in the second half. They used a fumble recovery and excellent field position to get a 38-yard field goal from Owen Valek. Their lone touchdown came on a 10-yard pass from Jones to Ty Carlson with 11:54 left in the second quarter.

Oswego East managed only 31 total yards of offense in the second half.

“To get the ball you’ve got to get stops, and when we got the ball we didn’t do a good job of hanging onto it very long,” Oswego East coach Tyson LeBlanc said. “They’re a physical team, and we didn’t come out tonight and match their physicality. And we’re going to play three physical teams coming down the line so we better figure it out and figure it out fast.”

Murphy connected with Malik Armstrong (two catches, 55 yards) for a 47-yard touchdown catch midway through the first quarter. Armstrong, who ran for 110 yards on 21 carries, would score on a 1-yard run later in the first quarter as the Indians led, 14-3.

Minooka broke the game open late in the fourth quarter thanks to a 4-yard touchdown run from Murphy and a 27-yard run from Armstrong for his third touchdown of the night. He also had a 65-yard kickoff return, stealing back the momentum after Oswego East scored its only touchdown.

“Out team is all gas, no brakes,” said Armstrong, an NIU recruit. “We don’t let anything stop us. We keep going. We had all the confidence we were going to get this win. We practiced hard and we came out here and showed them.”