Central routs Furness, wins Public AAAA Silver crown

JOAN AND STEPHEN Dydak experienced quite the shock while watching Game No. 3 in Central High's 2008 junior varsity football season.

Their son, Ryan, had been a slot receiver to that juncture. A second-teamer, at that. And in youth ball, he'd served exclusively as a lineman.

Now, he was playing quarterback.

"I didn't even tell them about the switch," Ryan said Thursday. "They were proud of me, but shocked. They were asking me afterward, 'Why are you at quarterback? How'd that happen?' "

Let's build the suspense.

First, digest the fact that Central yesterday humbled Horace Furness, 34-8, in relentless wind at 11th and Bigler streets to claim the Public AAAA Silver regular-season title at 6-0, as Dydak contributed 115 yards of rushing/passing.

Though he threw for no scores, he twice posted completions that advanced the ball to the end zone's doorstep. Overall, he went 8-for-11 for 87 yards. His 28 ground yards came on five carries, and four times he turned flush-outs into first downs.

OK, back to 2008 . . .

Dydak became the JV quarterback in quite bizarre fashion. One day he went to practice, only to notice both QBs were not on the premises. The assistant JV coach quickly whipped together a mini-tryout, with close to a dozen candidates, and the guy decided Dydak had fared the best.

He did not exactly throw, say, 56 bombs downfield, showing pinpoint accuracy on each and every one.

"I threw one pass. A 10-yarder," he said, laughing. "It wasn't even that good of a throw. But I guess it was better than everyone else's. Some of the other guys were so bad, the coach was making fun of them.

"One of the quarterbacks went down [with an injury], and the other guy wasn't there for that third game. The coach threw me out there, and I guess he thought I did OK, because I started the rest of the season."

In that first game, did Dydak fire for two TDs? Three? Four?

"I threw one pass. Wasn't even complete," he said, laughing even harder.

Despite that quite humble beginning, Dydak has become quite the presence for coach Rich Drayton's Lancers (6-1 overall). This season, he has completed more than two-thirds of his passes (49-for-73) while averaging 9.4 yards per attempt (685 total). In 2010, he saw action in only the last two games, going 19-for-35 for 202 yards, as Central went 3-3 in Silver and 6-6 overall.

"My senior year, I didn't want to go out not winning this division," Dydak said. "I saw this coming in our 7-on-7 competition. We had good skills guys and everybody was together. Nobody was taking plays off.

"While we were doing that, the linemen were watching films from last year and lifting weights, trying to make sure they'd be ready for the season. It all came together."

Central was assured one of Silver's two spots in the six-team AAAA playoffs (the top two in Gold get byes) even before this game began. Via tiebreakers, though, a Furness win by five or more points would have given the Falcons first and dropped Central to second. Now, Abraham Lincoln is assured of second.

Central seized command early. It kicked off with the wind, forced a punt that traveled only 10 yards, then drove 38 in four plays for Hakeem Ellis' 1-yard touchdown run.

The halftime score was 16-0, and the Lancers removed almost all hints of drama by scoring again five plays into the third quarter.

Ellis finished with 10 carries for 77 yards and two TDs. Jesse Gillis notched the same number of scores and was even more productive yardagewise (16-158). Richard "Tre" Drayton, the coach's son, made three catches for 46 yards and tallied the final TD on a 3-yard run.

The grunts were center Devin Cruz, guards Dave Rosario and Michel Okeke, and tackles Cameron Johnson and Samuel Reid. Okeke, no doubt, is the toast of the school today.

Reason: Toward the end, Dydak completed a pass to Gus Tolson, who, while trying to avoid a swarmfest, lateraled to Okeke. He rumbled forward for 4 yards and, for the rest of the game, his teammates couldn't stop congratulating him.

"Just when I was thinking, 'I need to go make a block [for Tolson],' I saw the ball in the air, coming right to me!" Okeke said.

When Okeke was asked whether he intended to beg for a tight-end tryout, a nearby teammate piped up, "Nah, running back!"

For Furness, franchise back Sharif Smith ran 15 times for 108 yards and passed 4-for-14 for 63 yards and a 38-yard TD to Malakiah "Max" Hunter. He did toss one interception (to Wesley De La Rosa), as did Dydak (to Bor Bor Kessley).

Dydak, who also plays baseball, boasts a 3.3 GPA and intends to pursue business in college. He lives on the 9800 block of Lackland Drive, a fade pattern from Holy Family University, and opted for Central "because we couldn't afford Catholic school and I knew the education would be better than a neighborhood school."

Pause. "I knew I could play here," he added.

Slot receivers everywhere are jealous.