By Bobby Narang- Photos by Gary Larson
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ORLAND PARK— The Orland Park Pioneers varsity team had a festive Sunday afternoon planned at Seliga Field.
The Pioneers celebrated Eighth Grade Night, complete with posters of each player lined up along the fence and a postgame gift box for every player. The pre-game featured every player introduced with their parents.
Now, the Pioneers just had one last task to complete the celebration – beat the Manhattan Patriots.
Orland Park rode a 24-point second-quarter explosion to a 38-8 running-clock victory over the Patriots in the final of four games at Carl Sandburg High School.
Just as the final whistle sounded, the PA announcer played “Taking Care of Business” over the speakers to finalize a memorable day. The Pioneers (2-3) have played efficient and sound football for two straight weeks.
In Week 4, the Pioneers crushed the Franklin Square Wildcats 37-0 to build momentum for Sunday’s home game, according to Varsity coach Adam Sutter said.
“Everything is clicking,” Sutter said. “The coaching staff is doing a great job and the kids are paying attention and dialed in. It’s a culmination of everything we’ve been working on. Our quarterback has a good arm, good legs and he knows the offense and is reading plays and the defense really well. He’s firing on all cylinders.”
The start of the game didn’t look like a runaway win was in store for the Pioneers. They scored just eight points in the first quarter, finding the end zone on their first drive of the game before the offense went into a cold spell.
The Pioneers wasted little time getting on the board, helped by good field position to seize an 8-0 lead. Quarterback Hudson Doftert had one of the best games of his young career, showing off an accurate arm and fast legs in the victory. Doftert guided the offense down the field, capping the drive with an seven-yard touchdown scamper in which he outran several defenders.
Doftert said he worked on his passing all week leading up to the key home game. He showed all of the hard work paid off, torching the Patriots’ defense with his precision passing. Doftert ran for a touchdown, tossed two touchdowns to two different receivers and ran the playbook to perfection to lead the offense to another big scoring output.
“I was really on point today,” Doftert said, smiling. “I worked last week on my deep balls and they looked a lot better. We have a great running game. Our offense is clicking. Our receivers are fast and athletic, and Nic Peisker runs the ball hard and breaks so many tackles. This win feels good after coming off a bad start to the season. We’re coming back.”
Wide receiver Maximus Streets-Pruitt was on the end of one of Doftert’s TD passes, standing in the end zone and hauling in a high arching 13-yard scoring grab to pad the lead to 16-0 early in the second quarter.
“We ran this play, which is supposed to be a backside go,” Streets-Pruitt said. “It was open. We ran it a play before. We called it again, and I was told to run a post and Hudson showed he was like Patrick Mahomes on that play.”
Right after his INT, Streets-Pruitt added another big play with an interception to spark another scoring drive right before halftime.
“The ball was in the air and I visualized and Hudson was also calling for the ball,” Streets-Pruitt said of his pick.
Cade Judeh had a play to remember, scoring on a 58-yard run on the first play of a second quarter drive, but the memorable moment was erased due to a holding call. Star running back Nicholas Peisker picked up his teammate by racing 55 yards on third down for a touchdown. Peisker burst loose on the right side, ending the stellar run by running over two defenders along the sidelines in the red zone to extend the lead to 24-0.
“It was a zone blocking to the left and nothing was over there, so they had a lot of people on that side and I cut it back and saw that it was open,” Peisker said of his long TD run. “Once I saw the outside was open, I just hit it and saw a couple of defenders were there. I didn’t want to cut it back, so I just ran over them. It was a really good feeling. Hudson’s passing makes our offense so much open. They just can’t key on me and have to key on the pass and be ready for it. The defense also played great. We’ve been clicking really well.
“These wins have been great. Next week we have a tough opponent, but I think we can take this into next weekend.”
Doftert went back to his arm for the next touchdown, drilling a pass to Dylan Ahmer for a 15-yard TD for a 32-0 edge. Earlier in the drive, Ahmer hauled in a 28-yard pass from Doftert to put the Pioneers in good field position.
“They only had one safety in the middle, so the post was wide open,” Ahmer said of his TD. “The safety went to the other side, so the middle was wide open. Hudson threw a good pass. He’s improved so much from the start of the season. Our running game was very effective. Our offensive line was really good.”
Rodney Vincent added one more highlight to the day, scampering 31 yards for a touchdown late in the second half. Luke Tonra had two big tackles on the final drive by the Patriots.
Sutter said it was a quality effort from his player.
“Max is a gamer and Nic had another big game on offense and defense,” Sutter said. “Amar finally got in the end zone. Everything is working right now. I’m very, very happy.”
The Pioneers were able to play most of the roster in Sunday’s big victory, including Rayan Ghabayen, Hudson Doftert, Louai Suleiman, Zackary Salah, Cade Judeh, Anderson Matthews, Nicholas Peisker, Vinny Ficaro, Mohammad Ashkar, Jude Daghlawi, Panos Kyros, John Sutter, Luke Tonra, Nolan Byrne, Dylan Enriquez, Aleksandar Tosev, Marquise McMorris, Jacob Hyla, Carter Peluso, Leonardo Luciano, Thomas Lynch, Karam Olyyan, Daniel Ramirez, Nick Mase, Muhammad Kassem, Aws Khalil, Edward Follis, Gavin Connors, Ryan Kenny, Daniel Malacina, Faris Hussein, Abdelkarem Shuaibi, Julian Mika, Noah Maslowiec, Rodney Vincent, James Okrasinski, Nicholas Hertzog, Dylan Ahmer, Avery Vermilyea, Joseph McCann, Brian Curran and Issam Abulaban.
The cheerleading squad was unable to perform due to the rainy conditions, but that didn’t stop the team from cheering the Pioneers to a blowout victory. The cheerleading team had a second-place showing in a competition on Saturday,
“Halftime wasn’t that good, but we couldn’t do stunts or tumbling, it would’ve been way better,” cheerleader Gia Parisi said.
Aubrey Baran said the cheerleaders had a fun weekend, capped by a solid showing by the football team on Sunday afternoon.
“It was really fun because we can do routines and we meet a lot of people,” Baran said.
Kaelyn Albright said the team wasn’t overly disappointed not performing on Sunday after a long weekend.
“I wish we got first on Saturday,” Albright said. “We did get a better score than we thought we would.”
The cheerleading squad also includes Brinley Laniosz, Charlotte Day, Leah Janota, Addison Meyers, Oliwia Burda, Violet Fino, Giulia Cangelosi, Natalie Brown, Aviana Briseno, Annabelle Briseno, Frankie Ficaro, Natalie Kehoe, Ellyana Connors, Aviana Martinez, Keira Barrera, Annabelle Deloya, Brittney Blazys, Brooke Blazys, Luciana Rupp, Nora Velez, Giuliana Bertucci, Lily Hahn, Perla Boulus, Gabriela Alonso, Sonia Carlan, Hailey Camargo and Marguerite Ryan.
