A back-and-forth battle Friday night saw explosive plays throughout, but the Oak Park Eagles came away from College of the Canyons’ Cougar Stadium with a 32-24 victory over the Saugus Centurions.
Oak Park senior Oliver Gonzalez was electric, recording four touchdowns. He scored twice on the ground, once on a reception and once on a kickoff return.
The Centurions made it all the way to the Oak Park 1-yard line late in the fourth, but an unfortunate snap pushed them back to the 5, and they were unable to convert on fourth and goal.
Saugus (1-1) sophomore Landon Lattimore was heating up early with four catches for 114 yards in the first quarter. He connected with junior quarterback Jake Nuttall on a 50-yard reception to convert on third down before grabbing a 25-yard touchdown pass to put the Centurions out in front early.
The Eagles (1-1) answered back right away, though, as Gonzalez took the ensuing kickoff to the house to knot things up at 7-7.
Both teams missed field goals in the first quarter before opening the second with punts.
Oak Park took its first lead of the game midway through the second quarter as senior quarterback Tillman Lovett hit senior Ethan Abergel with a shovel pass. Abergel ran it in from 6 yards out, but the PAT attempt was missed and the Eagles only led by 6.
Saugus struck back with just under a minute to play in the half to take a 1-point lead. Senior Gage Sheklow ran the ball three straight times, the last from a yard out to finally reach the end zone.
Gonzalez put Oak Park back in front with an 11-yard run after Saugus punted to start the third quarter. He followed that up with a 75-yard touchdown a couple drives later to complete his hat trick.
Saugus junior Kevin Aride made a 26-yard field goal between those two scores, though the Centurions were in the red zone after recovering a fumble caused by a bad snap.
Gonzalez made it four scores for him on the night on the first play of the fourth quarter. He caught a short pass from Lovett before speeding down the right sideline to complete a 75-yard catch-and-run play.
Junior Ty Hall made it a one-score game with 9:13 to go in the fourth on a 2-yard run. Junior Degan Grant had four catches for 81 yards during that drive to set up the score.
The Centurions took two timeouts early in the second half, and they were then unable to control the clock late.
Nuttall finished with 319 passing yards, completing half of his 32 passes. He completed seven straight passes before the final pass of the game didn’t reach the target. He had just under 200 passing yards in the second half.
Lattimore finished with just the 114 yards, getting frozen out of the game by the Oak Park defense after the first quarter while Grant had six catches for 103 yards. Senior Rylan Connelly recorded three catches for 60 yards and senior Johnathon Sabatucci had two catches for 36 yards.
Saugus found it tough to get the ground game going with just 40 rushing yards on the night.
Lovett was 17-for-24 passing, most of those going to Abergel, who racked up nine catches for 149 yards.
Gonzalez finished with 15 carries for 143 yards, getting nearly half those yards on just the one touchdown run. He added three catches for 66 yards.
Penalties were a theme throughout as the two teams combined for 113 yards on 16 penalties.
The Centurions were successful on just five of 13 attempts on third down, including all four in the third quarter. They missed on both fourth-down conversion attempts in the second half, but got one to go in the second quarter.
Saugus will look to get back to winning ways next week when the Centurions go on the road to take on the Camarillo Scorpions.
Oak Park has a home contest next week against the Birmingham Patriots.
Due to a late finish at COC, Saugus head coach Jason Bornn was not immediately available for comment at press time.
