The Cicero Prep Centurions took down the Tempe Prep Knights by a final score of 38-22 on Friday night.

Both teams got off to a slow start on offense, but the Centurions were able to pick up a few clutch touchdowns to separate themselves in a game that was delayed nearly an hour at halftime because of lightning. 

Cicero Prep senior quarterback Colin Hooppaw led the way for the Centurions, completing 10 of his 20 passes for 174 yards, as well as running for 96 yards. Senior Mark Alway had a season-high 111 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns. 

The Knights opened up the game with a 75-yard drive before a costly fumble at the goal line. Shortly after, the Centurions had a touchdown pass called back on third-and-4 before Hooppaw threw a 26-yard touchdown to Alway on fourth-and-9 and ran in the two-point conversion to take an 8-0 lead.

“The way they were guarding David, he wasn’t used to that all season, it created some adversity for him but that made me available on some of the routes. I had a wide-open route on a slice route because they double-teamed David,” Alway said.

The Centurions came into this matchup averaging 52 points a game in their last three games. On the other sideline, the Knights have averaged 59 points in their last three games. With just 50 seconds left in the first half, the teams scored a combined 14 points. 

Then both sides scored touchdowns in the last 50 seconds. The Centurions were leading 16-14 at halftime.

After the extended halftime, running back Branjor Byaruhanga ran for a 50-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage. The Knights were able to retaliate immediately, putting together an 85-yard touchdown drive. The drive was capped off by a 20-yard touchdown pass caught by Nolan Bailey for his third score of the day. 

“We told them at halftime that you guys are better than what we just showed, we need to take care of the ball and we need to start completing the easy things, we’re making this game harder on ourselves than it needs to be,” head coach Dmitri O'Brien said.

On the next drive, Alway caught a 35-yard touchdown on fourth-and-20. Alway followed that up with a 30-yard touchdown catch on the following drive, giving Cicero a 38-22 lead with under 8 minutes left in the game. After a big fourth-down stop, the Centurion's offense came back onto the field with 5 minutes left to ice the game. The offense picked up a few first downs and ended the game after a big run by Hooppaw. 

“We just had to play with some fire, we came out and we weren’t playing hard enough and we have to make the right reads,” Hooppaw said.

Cicero has no more regular season games scheduled and will be playing in the playoffs the next time they take the field. The 6-2 Centurions are currently ranked sixth among all 1A teams in the state. Tempe Prep heads to Superior next week with hopes of finishing their season with a winning record.