Oak Forest Bengal Football Video Highlights: Bengals shutout Hinsdale South 29-0 to advance to 2nd Round of 6A Playoffs

Oak Forest (9-1) beat Hinsdale South (6-4) on Friday 29-0 at Oak Forest High School in the first round of the 6A State Playoffs. The Bengals ran for 344 yards and added 20 in the air on just a few passes, while allowing Hinsdale South less than 90 total yards and just 4 first downs. As in the Tinley game, the defense was suffocating. The tone was set early. Oak Forest marched downfield on the opening possession with Kyle Hullinger (#5) scoring from 25 yards. On Hinsdale’s first offensive snap, DE’s Tom Livingston (#9) and Brendan Power (#88) met at the QB just as he received the snap from center, for one of the many TFL’s (Tackle for Loss) of the night. Later in the first half, a Blake Waller (#10) FG made it 10-0. Early in the second half, Hullinger scored again, this time on a short pass from Nick Ciufia (#15). That made it 17-0. In the 4th quarter, QB Tom Zale (#7) showed his ankle is almost back to 100% as he raced by 4 Hinsdale defenders on his way to a 29 yard TD. RB Tyler Usterbowski (#2) capped the scoring, getting 38 of his 107 yards on a TD run. The only miscues of the night were 2 missed extra points.

Kudos to the offensive line as they dominated Hinsdale South. Leading the way were Ryan Walton (#84), Mike Schoenfeld (#61), Mark Castrejon (#77), Jack Cramer (#53) and Ricky Vargas (#58). Defensively, Livingston added a big hit on 4th and 1 late in the 3rd quarter for a loss that erased any thoughts Hinsdale may have had of a comeback.

Oak Forest travels to Shepard (Palos Heights) this Friday night (the 2nd) at 7pm for a second round game.