Hungry for one more touchdown and his choice off a Mexican grill menu, Richmond-Burton running back Hunter Carley sped off the field, confident that he had a free lunch coming.

“My center [Mason Lowry] made a bet with me that if I get four touchdowns, then he’d get me Chipotle,” Carley said.

There’s always next game.

[ Photos: Richmond-Burton vs. Aurora Central Catholic ]

Carley settled for three TDs, including his first receiving, as top-seeded Richmond-Burton cruised to a 57-7 win over No. 9 Aurora Central Catholic in a Class 3A second-round playoff game Friday night in Aurora.

Three TDs from its junior star was more than enough for R-B (11-0). The Rockets will play their quarterfinal game at home against the winner of Saturday’s 1 p.m. game between No. 4 Bloomington Central Catholic (10-0) and No. 5 Monmouth-Roseville (9-1) in Bloomington.

“Next week gets real,” said coach Mike Noll, whose Rockets have outscored their first two playoff opponents 106-7. “It gets a lot harder from here on out, but that’s the fun of it.”

Fullback Riley Shea scored twice, finishing with a team-high 96 rushing yards on only six carries. Carley had 58 yards on four carries. Backups Gavin Saranzak (9-yard TD) and Colton Uphoff added 67 and 61 yards, respectively. Offensive linemen Lowry, Shane Falasca, Christian Ojeda, Joe Sulek and Calvin Werkmeister paved the way up front, as 10 Rockets rushed for a combined 376 yards. Sophomore Ethan Martens scored R-B’s eighth and final TD.

“I think our kids handled the week really well,” Noll said. “We challenged them to get better this week. We want to keep playing faster each week.”

Joseph Larsen set the tone early for R-B with a 58-yard punt return to the ACC 12 after the Chargers (8-3) went three-and-out on the game’s opening possession. On the next snap, Carley scored from 12 yards out. Luke Johnson ran into the end zone on the PAT, and the Rockets were up 8-0 with only two minutes, 26 seconds gone in the game.

“I was a little scared [on the punt return] because you really can’t see the ball at this stadium,” Larsen said. “It’s really hard when it gets up in the sky. I just stayed calm, caught the ball, and then I went to take my first step and slipped. But I trusted my team, they had blocks for me, no one was around, and they directed me which way to go. I just picked a hole and went.”

After Carley scored his second TD – and 30th of the season – to make it 15-0, Larsen intercepted the ball at the ACC 45. It was the fifth interception for Larsen, who had four against Johnsburg in Week 3.

On the next play, quarterback Ray Hannemann tossed a short pass to Carley, who lined up wide and ran an out route. He zigged and zagged down the left sideline and raced into the end zone from 40 yards out with 3:52 left in the first quarter.

Up 22-0, the Rockets didn’t need any more TDs from Carley.

“I caught the ball and I was just thinking, ‘I got to get in the end zone. I don’t catch the ball much, so I got to do something with it,’ ” Carley said.

By Carley’s count, it was the first reception of his two-year varsity career. He thinks he’s had one target in each of the past two regular seasons playing for R-B’s vaunted triple-option attack.

“I don’t think I’ve ever caught the ball before,” Carley said. “We had been moving really fast during the second quarter. We had really good tempo, so it was hard for them to adjust to all of our different formations. When they saw me out wide, they didn’t adjust properly, so the play just worked really nicely.”

Hannemann (3 of 6 for 73 yards) fired a 14-yard TD pass to tight end Jace Nelson to put the Rockets up 29-0 with four seconds left in the first quarter. Shea added TD runs of 2 and 10 yards in the second quarter to hike R-B’s lead to 43-0 at halftime.

The Chargers spoiled the shutout, which would have been R-B’s third in a row, when quarterback Grant Bohr and wide receiver Brodie Curry, two of only five seniors on the team, connected on a 30-yard TD pass with 8:25 left in the fourth quarter.

The Rockets limited the hosts to 144 yards.

“They’re every bit of what they showed on film,” said ACC coach Christian Rago, who’s a 2010 graduate of Woodstock, a Kishwaukee River Conference rival of R-B. “They are a very good group, and we knew that going in. I’m from that area so I’ve known about Richmond-Burton for awhile. They’re always this way. You knew coming in it was going to be a physical battle.”