BOLINGBROOK – It’s an old baseball adage that closers need to have short memories.
Apparently, it works for quarterbacks, too.
Bolingbrook quarterback Vincenzo Meschi and his teammates had an extremely tough Week 1 loss to Lincoln-Way East, but that seemed to be the farthest thing from their minds Saturday as they stacked up 532 yards of total offense and rolled to a 44-6 win over visiting Bradley-Bourbonnais.
Meschi threw for four touchdowns and probably could have had a few more had they needed it. He finished 17 of 25 for 233 yards.
“Playing such a tough team in Week 1 gave us an opportunity to knock of the rust, and you saw the potential,” Meschi said. “But heading into Week 2 we were pissed off that we lost, and we came in with that fire, and we came in determined and did what we had to.”
And doing what they had to do started quickly as Meschi connected with Andrew McElroy for what appeared to be a moderate gain, but McElroy slipped a tackle and raced for an 82-yard touchdown. It was the third play of the game.
Then a Bolingbrook defense that was stingy all day quickly got the ball back with a three-and-out. The Raiders showed they could put a drive together without relying only on quick bursts. Meschi engineered a 12-play drive and capped it with a 6-yard touchdown strike to freshman Kyan Berry-Johnson.
Bolingbrook’s defense kept giving the offense short playing fields to work with. After forcing the Boilermakers (0-2) to punt from deep in their own territory, Michigan recruit Tyler McLaurin flushed a frazzled Boilermaker punter into running into his own end zone without getting the kick off, and Jeremy Santiago recorded a safety.
Bolingbrook scored on yet another Meschi to McElroy combination midway through the second quarter to stretch its lead to 23-0, and while Bradley would draw closer on a touchdown pass just before the half it was clear that the Raiders were in control.
The Raiders shifted gears in the second half and got some productivity from the ground game. Jaquan Howard broke a spectacular 68 yard run early in the third quarter and Justin Lynch riped off a 60-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
Sandwiched between those two lengthy runs was Meschi’s fourth touchdown of the day, this time to another freshman, I’Marion Stewart.
“We knew we had this in us. We knew we could do what we had to do,” Meschi said. “We just didn’t get it done in Week 1, this was a lot more of what we thought we were capable. There are still some things we need to clean up. Nothing is perfect, but we definitely did a way better job this week, and I’m proud of what we did.”
Even with a big offensive performance, Bolingbrook coach John Ivlow wasn’t completely pleased with his team’s performance.
“We know we can throw and we know we can catch, but the run game still is not where we want it,” Ivlow said. “There’s so much to work on, maybe we scale down what we are trying to do and just do what we do best.”
Source: The Daily Chronicle
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