BELLEVILLE – It’s becoming pretty clear that if teams want to have any chance of success against Edwardsville’s football team, they need to stop sophomore running back Dionte Rodgers.
Rodgers ran for 148 yards and four touchdowns in the Tigers’ 49-13 win Friday night at Belleville East, a win that put EHS at 5-0 overall, 3-0 in the Southwestern Conference. Rodgers’ yardage was set up by a series of sweeps by senior back Daval Torres, who picked up 108 yards on four carries and also scored a third-quarter touchdown on a 15-yard pass from Brenden Dickmann.
Edwardsville’s win set up a SWC showdown at home Friday night, with the league title likely on the line; the Flyers are also 5-0, 3-0 in the league going into the game.
Rodgers said all the focus going into the game was on the Lancers. “We try to take it a game at a time,” Rodgers said after the game. “Now it’s on to East Side and we’ve got to get a good week of practice in.”
Rodgers had earlier scored on runs of two and 12 yards before breaking loose for a 61-yard touchdown sprint midway through the second term, finishing his touchdown spree with a 13-yard run in the late going of the first half. “Just keep pounding,” Rodgers said was the advice given to him by the Tiger coaching staff. “Coach (Bryan Young) to keep driving my feet and hitting the holes hard and don’t get tackled by arm tackles, and that’s what I did and got the job done.
“Torres opened it out; he’s got speed outside and he can run inside, so that helped spread the defense out and we could run it underneath the tackles,” Rodgers said of Torres’ ability to get outside on the sweep.
“We practice hard and (focus on) execution,” Torres said. “We did most of what we wanted to do; we can always get better. We’ve got a big opponent next week, so we’ve got to keep getting better. We executed today, but next week’s got to be really good.
“My teammates blocked really good for me, which was really good. We practice the blocking scheme; it was really fun running. I got loose a couple of times, so that was really good. I always try to make something happen.”
Kickoff for Friday’s game against the Flyers is set for 7 p.m.
