Brookfield Central Drops Season Opener

Racine Park head football coach Dennis Thompson’s philosophy is pretty simple: work hard and you’ll be rewarded.

One game into the season and that mantra is already coming through.

The Panthers, who finished 4-5 overall last year, picked up a big non-conference win Friday night by knocking off , 30-20.

“Kicking off the season, this was a great win for us,” Thompson said. “(Brookfield Central) is a good program and I told the guys, ‘This is not going to be an easy game. They come to play football here at BC.' ’’

“The kids have to dig down deep in the offseason. We preach it and preach it. Some of them buy into it, some of them don’t," he said. "Everyone wants to play, but not everyone buys into it.

“The seniors really bought into it. It’s a good group of seniors that we have. We have some good sophomores and juniors too…but our seniors really stepped up and I’m very proud of them.”

The senior with the most impact for the Panthers (1-0) was hands down Jordan Payne. The 6-foot 2-inch quarterback finished 6-of-14 for 81 yards, one score and one interception.

While Payne didn’t dominate the game through the air, he owned it on the ground. The 205-pound senior rushed for 170 yards on 13 carries, including touchdown runs of 48, 24 and 2 yards.

With just over eight minutes remaining, the Lancers (0-1) had cut Park’s lead to just 23-20 and appeared to finally have momentum going in their direction.

Instead, the Panthers responded by methodically driving 77 yards in 2 minutes, 29 seconds, capped by a 2-yard touchdown run by Payne, to all but put an end to any comeback thoughts Central might have had.

“Obviously, the result is disappointing,” Brookfield Central head coach Jamie Meulemans said. “Defensively, we didn’t control our gaps at times and had errors on our alignments, but that (Park) is a good football team.”

The Panthers jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead, scoring on the second play from scrimmage as Payne ran right up the middle for a 48-yard score.

After a fumble by the Lancers deep in their own territory on their opening possession, Park stretched their lead to 14 when Payne connected with senior Kyle Spranger for a 19-yard touchdown.

Senior Julian Robinson picked off Central quarterback Jason Meichtry and returned it to the 15-yard line on the ensuing series and a Park field goal left the home crowd stunned to see their team down 17 not seven minutes into the game.

“Mistakes really held us back,” Meulemans said. “We made mistakes on both sides of the ball and special teams, too. When you’re playing a good team, which we will in the (Greater) Metro (Conference), and these guys were good, you can’t make mistakes. You can’t make mental errors.”

In all, Central committed 10 turnovers: one lost fumble, one blocked punt attempt, a botched field goal try and six interceptions.

Overshadowed by the result was the play of running back DeMario Harris for Central. The sophomore racked up 131 yards, 92 in the first half, and tallied two scores.

The Lancers wrap up the non-conference portion of their schedule Friday when they take on Oak Creek (1-0).