McKinney, Nazareth cruise past R-B

LaSteven McKinney’s stock just went way up.

The 5-9, 160-pound junior running back scored a career-high five touchdowns and rushed for 196 yards for No. 22 Nazareth in the Roadrunners’ 69-21 win over visiting Riverside-Brookfield Saturday in LaGrange Park.

McKinney scored on runs of 72, 4, 25, 4 and 22 yards. His previous career high was three touchdowns last week against Clark.

“I wasn’t expecting a big day like this, maybe just three touchdowns,” said McKinney, who is getting looks from most Big Ten schools and Florida. “But as long as we got the win I didn’t care about the numbers. The offensive line, and the defense getting the ball back to the offense, I give all my credit to them.

“This is something I’ll tell my kids about,” he said.

McKinney also played some defense at cornerback and safety, trying to defend against Riverside-Brookfield’s new A-11 offense where every offensive player is an eligible receiver.

“It was really confusing with three linemen and six receivers,” McKinney said. “I’ve never really been thrown into defense and when they sent me out there I knew what I had to do, but I had a few butterflies in my stomach.”

It seemed like the A-11 was working well in the first half for R-B.

Riverside-Brookfield (0-2) and Nazareth traded touchdowns in the first quarter, but the Roadrunners rattled off four scores in the second quarter to take a 55-21 lead into halftime.

Nazareth coach Tim Racki figured that R-B would be hot in the first couple quarters and then cool off, giving the Roadrunners a chance to get back into the game.

It also helped that Nazareth knew about the A-11 all summer and was able to simulate it during practices.

“You can prep as much as you want, but until you see it . . . and they had us on the ropes in the first half,” Racki said. “What was happening was we were giving their receivers [options] and not disrupting their timing. Any offense, I don’t care if it’s A-11 or pro or spread, you disrupt the timing and you’re going to get a little bit of pressure.”

Bulldogs quarterback Billy VandeMerkt ran in from a yard out to tie the score at 7 with 8:29 to play in the quarter and then threw for two more scores. After R-B tied the score at 14 with 3:48 to play in the first quarter, the Bulldogs led in terms of time of possession: 7:52 to a mere 20 seconds for Nazareth.

R-B got to within a touchdown at 27-20. But that was when Nazareth (2-0) took over and shut R-B out for the rest of the game.

But all anyone talked about was McKinney.

“[College coaches] want to see some film and after they see this film he will have a lot of [college] choices,” Racki said.