By Patrick Z. McGavin-Photos by Renee Kaspar
**Additional Phptos are Available for Purchase at https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p212336768 **
CHANNAHON— The shock of the new and knowing how to accurately respond is the hardest part about every start of a new season.
With young players, anything is possible. Fortunately for the Super Lightweights of the Orland Park Pioneers, they created their own winning narrative.
The story marked a super-charged and downhill momentum that never let up.
“We’ve got some guys on the team who are just lightning,” Pioneers coach Pat Richardson said. “They’re pretty tough. When they want to run as fast as they can, not many guys can catch them.”
Peyton Barbee scored two rushing touchdowns and set up another score with a punt return in the 27-7 victory over St. Ann here in the season-opening game of the River Valley Youth Football league here on Sunday, August 17.
The Pioneers scored on their first four possessions in running out to the commanding halftime advantage.
The pieces clicked, and the team showed no nerves or early-season jitters as the offense created dynamic plays in the running game, and the dominant defense rarely allowed the Golden Eagles to experience any positive plays.
Barbee only touched the ball four times, but each moment was magic, magnifying his importance to the team, jump-starting the attack and putting the Pioneers firmly in control.
On the first play from scrimmage, he took the deep pitch and motored around the right end for 29 yards. Fullback Niko Scumaci followed with an 11-yard burst.
Sean Johnson, the other speedster back, got into the action with a 15-yard run around the left edge.
Barbee finished the four-play scoring drive with a five-yard touchdown run around the right end. He ran untouched into the end zone.
He punctuated the opening sequence by scoring on the conversion run for the 7-0 lead.
“I had some great blocks on those plays,” he said. “It felt great to score early in the game like that, and have the early lead.”
If Barbee illustrated the offensive capabilities, the high-energy and overwhelming defensive effort shut the door on any hope St. Ann had about competitive in the game.
Orland Park registered tackles for loss on six of their first seven plays from scrimmage. Barbee was just as electric on defense, starting the St. Ann opening series with a one-yard loss.
Johnson and Joey Guest followed with their own tackle for loss. Kitai Hubbard forced the early punt by breaking the offensive line for another one-yard loss.
Barbee only needs a sliver of space to break free and do what he does. Having the opening space created by special teams optimizes his value and importance.
“I was able to make a couple of tackles, and that felt great and got my confidence up,” Barbee said. “I love the punts, and having a chance to return them.
“I almost took the one to the house.”
Barbee waved off Johnson, gathered the punt and ran down the right sideline for the 37-yard return.
“The special teams was really good, and I really liked how Peyton took that one punt really far,” Johnson said. At first I thought I was going to get it, but then I saw Peyton was in front of me, and he took it.”
Turnaround, as they say, is fair play, and it took Johnson just one play to match Barbee’s scoring output. On the first play, Johnson took the jet sweep and pushed around the left edge for the 18-yard touchdown run.
Scumaci scored on the conversion run for the 14-0 lead.
“The only thing I thought about was that I had to sprint, and I couldn’t stop until I hit the end zone,” Johnson said.
“We did really well on offense. We had some really good blocking. I had the ball, and nobody touched me. If we didn’t have those people on the line, we would not have scored.”
The defense was just stellar, tough, aggressive and flying to the ball.
“We’ve been preaching to the defense that it doesn’t have to be pretty,” coach Richardson said. “You just have to go find that ball. Don’t worry about it. At the end of the day, go get us the football.
“That’s what everybody was doing, hunting it down. We had some kids who made some big hits today. We had a lot of good energy and good stuff on the field.”
Quinn McCarthy, George Buffo, Suhaib Ballouta, Hubbard, Barbee and Johnson were the other defensive standouts.
St. Ann never had a chance to get its offense untracked. Even following an uncharacteristic mistake on a Golden Eagles punt on a turnover, the Pioneers responded with four straight defensive plays for negative yardage.
Big and mobile, McCarthy was a one-player wrecking crew. He destabilized the Golden Eagles’ offensive line, and collapsed the interior.
He finished with a team-high five tackles.
“We didn’t let their offense do anything,” McCarthy said. “I was just trying to grab or shove guys out of the way, and get to the quarterback or whoever had the ball.
“My favorite part about football and playing defense is I love how I get to tackle people.”
On the first play of the second quarter, Barbee broke around the left edge and ran untouched for the 35-yard touchdown scamper. He finished with 106 all-purpose yards, including three carries for 69 yards.
Quarterback Thomas Richardson, the son of the coach, is the natural leader. The run game was so dominant the Pioneers never attempted a pass.
Thomas Richardson showed great poise and a grasp of the offense in bringing together the different strands of the offensive attack.
“Getting everybody the ball, running the ball and scoring some touchdowns is what I do out there,” Thomas Richardson said. “We all know where the plays are going, and we all know what to do on them.
“It was pretty important to get the lead and just establish control. Once we did that, we just had to keep running to the outside and keep hitting the holes hard.”
On the final scoring drive, key players from the second unit stepped up. Running backs Vincent LaPapa and Ballouta ripped off chunks of yards.
Running back Henry Wade, who is the second-team quarterback, completed the Pioneers’ scoring with a 25-yard run around the left edge with 3:34 to play in the first half.
Thomas Richardson ran in the conversion point.
Wade bowled over a couple of St. Ann tacklers in reaching the end zone.
“I was just telling myself to just score a touchdown,” Wade said. “Just score a touchdown. It felt really good.”
The dominant performance proved the best of all worlds for coach Richardson. He was able to liberally substitute, and get invaluable playing experience for every member of the team.
“Not very often when we don’t have a Fifth Quarter are we able to get every kid on the field into the game, and we did that today,” he said. “That was the biggest win of the day.
“I thought top to bottom, everybody did a great job.”
The Super Lightweights of the Orland Park Pioneers had many standout contributors in the 27-7 victory Sunday over St. Ann. They included Mahmoud Abu AlShaikh, Stanley Bielawski, Royal Ward, Jax Thomas, Max Kalker, Logan Biskup, Ryker Tyrakowski, Cade Rucinski, Nicholas Vuolo, Ethan Brandofino, Wren Rucinski, Noah Hammad, Mahmoud Hinnawi, Michael Maurella, Dominic Dronzek, Abdallah Hasan, Henry Kruse, Shane McDermott and Jibreel Morrar.
The Super Lightweights Cheer squad provided their own inspiration and support with their graceful routines and vocal performances. Their members are Normandy Golden, Maddie Battaglia, Everleigh Holdsworth, Hazel Nichols, Emersyn Ramirez, Piper Darin, Savannah Molina, Eva Garza-Perez, Olivia Raggio, Morgan Griffin, Nella Leithleiter, Charlotte Koehn, Lanie Hermann, Emmy Burger, Mia Mizera, Meghan Shilney, Lea Barbee, Chloe Fregeau, Haley Erwin, Eva Aubin, Siena Lang, Olivia Peters, Sofie Annerino, Hailey Valan, Jessa Alvarez, Grace Latronica, Ava Kolodziej and Emma Podoreski.
