By RICHARD MARKEY

Herald-Whig Sports Writer

CARTHAGE, Ill. —For nearly 20 minutes, the Riverton football team maintained a glimmer of hope that it might find a way to upset defending Class 3A state champion Illini West.

But it took only four minutes for that glimmer to completely fade.

The Chargers scored four touchdowns in the final 4 minutes, 35 seconds of the second quarter, opening their title defense with a 56-0 squashing of the Hawks in Saturday afternoon's first-round game at Fuzz Berges Field.

"It's playoff time," Illini West fullback Stefan Flynn said. "We haven't really had any close games, not that we didn't play anybody good, but we just didn't have any. When playoff time comes around, we know we won state last year and that's behind us.

"It's really a big thing for us to repeat or we don't feel like we've accomplished anything."

Illini West (10-0) will take the next step at home next week against Monticello (8-2), which knocked out Central-Southeastern 57-40. The Chargers have now won 24 consecutive games, thanks in large part to special teams.

A blocked punt and a punt return inside the Hawks' 20-yard line led to two of Illini West's four scores.

"I really thought our defense and special teams were a big key for us today," Illini West coach Jim Unruh said. "The defense let them have very few first downs and special teams were very good pinning them down with our kickoff team. Our punt returns made for a really short field for our offense."

The Chargers were up 14-0 before Flynn scored on a 3-yard run with 4:35 to play in the first half. A three-and-out by Riverton (6-4) resulted in the Illini West's Ryan Bolen blocking a punt that was recovered at the Hawks' 7-yard line and led to another Flynn touchdown run.

There was a running clock in the second half as Illini West ended up outgaining Riverton 340-80 in total yardage. The Hawks didn't complete a pass and averaged less than 2 yards per play.

Meanwhile, the Chargers averaged 9.2 yards per carry, setting the tone with Ser Whitaker's 78-yard touchdown run on the second play of the game. Flynn finished with three TD runs and Drake Schmudlach added a 68-yard scoring scamper in the second half.

"There's a lot of mis-direction in our offense," said Flynn, who had 63 yards on 12 carries. "We work on it everyday, it's something we've got down to a science, we've got a lot of great coaches who have run the offense for a long time and our linemen do a great job."

— sports@whig.com/221-3365