Oak Lawn football’s fast start sent coach Ryan Pattison to the record books.
After consulting them, Pattison confirmed the Spartans are 6-0 for the first time in program history after their 21-7 home win over Evergreen Park on Oct. 3.
“It’s really hard to put into words,” Pattison said. “It was never one of our goals to go 6-0. It’s just a product of the kids and the staff and their resilience and their willingness to compete. They want to do the best they can each and every week.
“They haven’t taken their foot off the gas pedal and that’s a credit to them. They’re not used to winning and it’s not like it’s something we’ve been doing year after year. To see them have the maturity to handle winning and still come to work every day and knowing they have to have a good week of practice day-in and day-out, my hat’s off to those kids for handling this with maturity and striving to be their best week after week.”
One of the foundational contributors for Oak Lawn (6-0, 3-0) this season is junior fullback/defensive end Jayden Schlosser. Against the Mustangs, Schlosser rushed 18 times for 87 yards and scored on runs of 1 and 19 yards.
“We run the triple option on offense and Jayden is running through the trenches,” Pattison said. “He’s a big kid — 6-foot-1, 215 pounds — but for his size, he can move. He’s a rare combination of size and speed.
“In high-school football, if you’re blessed and lucky enough to have a kid with those characteristics, you’re going to give them the ball and let him do his thing. The strength of his game is his size and his speed. It’s rare to have a fullback that you know when he breaks through, no one is running him down and the ball is going to the house.”
Making Schlosser’s story even better is that he never played organized football until he enrolled at Oak Lawn as a freshman.
“To be 6-0, we expected this from the summer,” Schlosser said. “We knew this group was special and that we could accomplish anything we put our minds to. But the job’s not over for us.
“This whole entire summer, we just became more of a group and a family instead of just individuals. For the guys, this means so much. I know that each and every one of them has put so much sweat, blood and tears into this team this year.”
Evergreen Park (3-3, 0-3) was led defensively by junior linebacker Gavin Wheeler, who had 13 tackles, two tackles-for-loss and forced a fumble.
“He’s just a great player,” Mustangs coach Jim Ramazinski said. “We were missing him last week on defense, but he came back this week. I think he’s probably our most consistent defensive player.
“He’s a good leader on the field. Gavin’s a playmaker who’s athletic and he’s very, very smart on the football field.”
Evergreen Park scored its lone touchdown on a 36-yard pass from Tyler Phelps to Omarrion Evans. Also chipping in was Cory Isaac who finished with 90 yards on 13 rushes.
For Oak Lawn, Kamari Polk scored a touchdown on a 7-yard run while Isaac Gibson had a pair of interceptions.