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Health & Fitness

CN100 Game of the Week preview: Football, Tinley Park vs. Rich East

Tinley Park and Rich East square off in a rematch of last year's back-and-forth contest won by the Titans. See this year's battle on the CN100 Game of the Week.

Week 2: Tinley Park Titans vs. Rich East Rockets

PARK FOREST – Over the past few seasons, Rich East and Tinley Park have become two of the area’s top Class 5A football programs, and they will get the chance to face off against each other Saturday.

The two teams staged an exciting game last season, with Tinley Park rallying for a 40-28 win. Both squads reached the second round of the playoffs last year and started their 2012 seasons with wins last week.

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“We’re similar,” Tinley Park coach Nick Johnston said. “Two teams that met last year and both made the second round last year, should be a good match-up. They know they’ll be on Comcast. They’re fired up about that. It gets the juices flowing, a little more motivation.”

CN100, The Comcast Network, will air the game at Noon on Sunday, Sept. 2, and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 4. The game can also be found throughout Chicagoland with Xfinity On Demand.

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The Titans are coming off a solid, 17-16 win over one of the state’s Class 4A powers, Stillman Valley. Stillman was 37-4 over the past three seasons, including a state title, but Tinley Park managed a win. Junior running back Preston Thompson was an animal, rushing for 245 yards after posting over 800 yards on varsity as a sophomore last year. Quarterback Christian Plummer was steady, primarily targeting Jamar Washington in the passing game.

“It was good to get the first win,” Johnston said. “We have an inexperienced offensive line, so we didn’t know what to expect other than practice. Some things we have to straighten out, but some things were positive. The rookie mistakes hopefully are out of our system.”

Barry Reade has turned Rich East into a perennial playoff contender in his six years as coach, and the Rockets won their first playoff game since 2001 last year. They were dominant in a 34-13 win over Eisenhower last week. Jawaun Ward ran for two touchdowns and Kenneth Naylor ran for a touchdown and returned an interception for another score. Malcolm Miller is a three-year starter at quarterback. Defensively, linebacker Nick Horne is one of the Southland Conference’s best players.

“We gave up a couple of big plays in the first half, but we dominated the second half,” Reade said. “Malcolm does a good job. He has a full grasp of the offense. He can handle it.”

Reade said that when he looks at Tinley Park’s program, he sees a lot of similarities in that they have a solid running game and a strong defense. The sting of last year’s loss to the Titans still resonates.

“We’re coming in after dropping one last year when we fought back and led and couldn’t hold on,” Reade said. “It was a good game. We feel like we want to come back and finish what we started. They were too good in the end for us last year.”

- Paul Johnson, CN100 Correspondent

Stay up to date on all of CN100's games this season by visiting www.cn100.tv/game_of_the_week.aspx or at www.facebook.com/gameoftheweek. Find us at twitter.com/CN100GOTW. Also, check out the Battle of the Fans section at www.facebook.com/battleofthefans to see who has the biggest and wildest fans. Each week, catch up on the best in Chicagoland prep sports with CN100 Sports Weekly. Check it out at http://www.cn100.tv/sports_weekly.aspx or at www.facebook.com/sportsweekly.

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