The Oak Lawn Spartans will face off against the East St. Louis Flyers at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday. The teams are rolling into the game with opposing streaks: Oak Lawn has struggled recently with 17 defeats in a row, while East St. Louis will arrive with three straight victories.
Oak Lawn is headed into the contest out to prove that what happened against Oak Forest back in October (when they were outscored in every quarter) was just a minor bump in the road. Oak Lawn was dealt a 65-20 loss at the hands of Oak Forest. While losing is never fun, the Spartans can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Illinois football rankings (they are ranked 397th, while the Bengals are ranked 175th).
Meanwhile, it can be hard to translate regular season success to the playoffs, but East St. Louis had no problem doing just that on Saturday. They simply couldn't be stopped as they easily beat the Titans 58-14. Considering the Flyers have won nine matches by more than 20 points this season, Saturday's blowout was nothing new.
It was another big night for Kendrick Lyons, who threw for 434 yards and six touchdowns while completing 90.5% of his passes, and also rushed for 37 yards. Those 37 rushing yards gave him a new career-high. 145 of Lyons' passing yards were hauled in by Christopher Bennett, who also brought in four receiving touchdowns.
East St. Louis' defense stepped up as well, laying out the QB five times. Glenwood's QB won't forget Keandre Mcclendon anytime soon given he sacked him twice. Mcclendon has been hot for a while, having also posted five or more total tackles the last ten times he's played. East St. Louis got some further help from Phillip White: he picked up a sack and made 12 total tackles in addition to snagging two interceptions.
East St. Louis was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 200 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 181 rushing yards in three consecutive matchups.
East St. Louis' win bumped their record up to 11-1. As for Oak Lawn, their defeat dropped their record down to 0-9.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
