Quick-strike Oakton Trounces Edison

The locker room opens at 7:30 Saturday morning, Oakton High coach Joe Thompson told his players Friday night after his team's 48-7 trouncing of host Edison. There was not a pained look among them. None of the moans or groans one might expect from a teenager looking forward to sleeping in.

The Cougars, who lost at home 18-14 a year ago to Edison, took the coach's call for an early wake-up in stride. They all know there's plenty of work to do ahead of next Friday's game against Westfield if their perfect season (5-0) is to continue.

"District play is a whole 'nother ball game," said senior running back Luke Willis. "The games are decided by two or three plays, I don't care who you're playing. We just need to come out and execute every play, just like we work on in practice."

Willis helped the Cougars put the game away with a pair of second-quarter scores that made it 35-0 and set the table for a quick final half. With 3:04 to play in the quarter, Willis took a pitch to the left side from quarterback Jimmy Boone and looked as if he was going to be stopped for a loss, but he managed to get away from the Eagles' defensive line, hit the secondary and outraced the remaining Edison defenders en route to a 56-yard touchdown. Moments later, after a botched Edison punt gave Oakton the ball on the Eagles' 20, Willis grabbed a screen pass over the middle and dodged the defense to post the final tally of the half.

"The first one, I was just looking to get the first down, and I started to run out of room," said Willis, who finished the game with 96 yards on six carries. "Nestor Romero (a senior offensive lineman) stuck with the play the whole time. I was just trying to get an extra yard or two, I broke a tackle, he got me a block and I got to the next level and I was gone."

With the 35-point lead, rules called for a running clock, so the next 21 minutes of game time went by quickly. Oakton's Eric Goins made a pair of field goals and the Cougars were up 41-0 with about three minutes to play.

Edison, which dropped to 1-4 in coach Anthony Parker's first year, managed just 152 yards in the game. Most of those yards came on two plays, a 41-yard run by Lasalle Mensah on the Eagles' second possession and a 36-yard pass from backup quarterback Charles Clark to Tyrone Mackall on fourth-and-10 with 8:30 to play. The strike down the middle of the field set up Edison's only touchdown of the game, a 17-yard pass, also on fourth down, from Clark to senior receiver Kevin Morales.

"We'll watch the film and try to correct our mistakes," Parker said. "As strong as Oakton was, we gave them four touchdowns. They took over the ball four times inside our own 40, so we'll be trying to figure out what kind of game it would have been had we not done that."

Oakton went ahead 21-0 with drives of 20, 31 and 20 yards. 

"We thought at one point it should have been 7-7, and then they ended up going ahead 14-0, so we just have to try to watch the film and get better and correct those mistakes," Parker said.

The Cougars jumped ahead 7-0 just 2:22 into the game when Boone scored on an option play. The three-play drive was set up on a turn of events that foreshadowed a rough evening for the Eagles. First, on fourth down after Edison's opening possession, punter Fermin Rodriguez booted the ball to Oakton near midfield. However, the Cougars were called for being offsides. Parker accepted the penalty, giving his team a five-yard advantage. But the second time around, Rodriguez's punt failed to clear his blockers, and Oakton took over on the Edison 20. 

It wasn't the first time an Edison punt would be ineffective.

"It was a struggle," Parker said. "When he punts and he hits it well, it's a problem (for the other team) but when he doesn't, he doesn't. We're going to work with him, he's got a strong leg and we're going to get him a little better."

Thompson, Oakton's coach, empathized with Parker.

"… A couple years down the road that's going to be a tough team to play," he said. "They've got a good scheme. Defensively, they run hard to the ball. They're good tacklers. They had some trouble on special teams tonight and as a coach, sometimes you can't control that stuff. It put them in terrible field position all night and had they been able to kick the ball out, they might have been able to set us up. It's tough to play defense from inside your own 20 all night."

Each team moves into the heart of its schedule next week. Edison travels to Yorktown and Oakton plays at Westfield.

"We feel better about ourselves in our district," Parker said. "Our non-conference this year was three Division 6 schools. We had West Springfield, Centreville, Oakton and they're all pretty good. We're hoping to compete better in our district."