It was senior night for Oak Park! In week 9 of the regular season Oak Park took on the Grandview Bulldogs. Grandview would keep it close in the first half, but the Northmen broke away, leading by as much as 28 heading into the 4th quarter and would finish the game 35-21.

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 Offense:

 
Oak Park started differently than a lot of their contests this year, which is in slow fashion. They would put up only 7 points in the whole first half and go into halftime tied with Grandview. They proceeded to put on a show in the second half putting up 28 points and going 4 for 5 on touchdowns in their first 5 possessions in the second half. The offense seemed a lot calmer after halftime, Northmen leaned on their seniors for senior with players like '22 Bubba Bogart seeing some big opportunities down the field.
 
The last game of the regular season was a big one for the senior quarterback '22 Ty Clemens, who racked up 180 yards passing and a season high 4 touchdowns. He would also surpass 1500 passing yards in his career at Oak Park. Congratulations Ty!  Senior wide receiver '22 Bubba Bogart who was previously mentioned put up 2 touchdowns one going for 44 yards and the other going for 40. '25 Travon Pankey and '22 KeAndre Braxton split carries evenly which created a two-headed snake of a backfield. Both Pankey & Braxton went for 90 yards with Braxton punching in the loan rushing touchdown, from 26 yards out, on the night. The offense boomed and proved they can put up points in a hurry.

Oak Park hopes to explode like they did this week next week in the playoffs!

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Defense:

Defensively the Northmen looked a lot better than the score looked. This defense only gave up 7 points in the first half and 8 points in the second as the other touchdown for Grandview was a scoop and score fumble recovery.
 
This defense was once again amazing on late downs, forcing the opposing offense to get off the field. The defense lined up on 3^rd down 11 times and only let the offense convert once. Allowing just 4 passes and 37 passing yards in the entirety of the game is something the Northmen would like to repeat in the first round of the playoffs. Tackles for loss happened frequently, as '22 Paul Hernandez, '22 Adriano Garcia, '22 Juliano Sokoli, and '24 Alex Valles all recorded one. The tackle leader was once again junior '23 Karl Knaak with 8 and he also had 6 assisted tackles.

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What's Next?

 
Next week is the first round of the playoffs for the Northmen. They get a second chance to square up against their biggest rival in the last decade....the Staley Falcons.

An Oak Park win this week has a lot of implications for the Northmen. It would be the first win vs Staley in school history, and advance the Northmen another week in the C5D16 tournament vs #1 Fort Osage.

This game will be at the DAC at 7 o'clock on Friday night...theme is Blue-on-Blue!!

LET'S GO NORTHMEN!