Oswego East uses big plays to overcome mistakes, top Plainfield East

PLAINFIELD – Oswego East made a lot of mistakes during Thursday’s game at Plainfield East, but the Wolves also made several big plays on both sides of the ball.

Ultimately, they did enough to beat the Bengals, 34-20.

“Obviously, winning is better than losing, but we don’t feel like the way we played tonight is going to get it done on our side of the conference,” Wolves coach Tyson LeBlanc said. “We’ve got to be better than we were tonight.”

Quarterback Tre Jones ran for a pair of touchdowns and threw for another, while Christian Martyn ran for a couple of touchdowns as the Wolves did some nice things on offense.

“We were still able to score, but you have to finish your meal,” Jones said. “We left too much stuff on the table and that goes to show how much talent we have in this program, where you can have a night like this and still put up 34 [points].”

[ Photos from Oswego East vs. Plainfield East ]

Oswego East (2-1) got a 29-yard touchdown run from Jones along with his 11-yard strike to Jalen Lewis in the first half, but Plainfield East (1-2) countered with a pair of touchdown passes from Brandon Parades as the sophomore connected from 26 yards to Quinn Morris and 32 yards to Kameron Hopkins for a 14-13 lead.

The Wolves started to pull away in the second half, punishing the Bengals by intercepting three passes and rushing for three touchdowns to take a 34-14 lead with 9:11 left in the game.

Martyn scored on a 42-yard run with 9:42 left in the third quarter. He’d score again on a 7-yard run after Jones broke through the Plainfield East defense and sprinted 82 yards for a score along the sideline.

“He’s a real smart kid,” Jones said about Martyn. “I’m calling him ‘kid,’ and he’s just a year younger than me. He brought his lunch pail tonight. He did his thing.”

While penalties hurt both sides, the Bengals were victimized most by turnovers, as the Wolves intercepted five passes. Michael Polubinski snagged a pair, also returning a punt 30 yards to set up the team’s final score.

“I’ll help out wherever the team needs me,” Polubinski said. ”I just really want to put it all out on the line. We pride ourselves every week for special teams and put as much time on that as offense and defense.”

Despite the turnovers, the Bengals kept the game close, with Tre Johnson hauling in a 36-yard touchdown from Parades on a fourth-down play with 7:07 left to pull within 34-20.

“It was definitely not the most beautiful night with everything going,” Bengals coach Brad Kunz said. “We had so many penalties on us and we put ourselves in a bad position quite a bit. We put our offense in a long field and defense in a short field, and that’s not a recipe for success.”

Kunz remembers trailing 35-0 at half when the teams played last year. He recognizes the program’s growth.

“We had some passes that got tipped and intercepted, and a lot of things that just didn’t go our way,” he said. “I wish you played a series against these teams, but unfortunately you don’t get to, and we’re a solid 7A team and our schedule is full of 8A playoff teams, so it’s going to be a battle every night.”