Villa Park Thinks Run for Victory : Prep football: Spartans forget about last week’s defeat and concentrate on their rushing attack to beat Orange, 24-7.

ORANGE —  Villa Park High School Coach Pat Mahoney said it was the short week that helped his Spartans make short work of Orange.

Playing Thursday night following a Friday night game, Villa Park defeated Orange, 24-7, in a Century League game at El Modena High School.

“After we got beat up last week by El Modena, I think the short week helped,” Mahoney said. “The kids didn’t have time to think about it.”

What Villa Park wasn’t thinking about was a 38-23 beating at the hands of El Modena the previous week.

What the Spartans were thinking was run, run, run.

Villa Park, which improved to 4-3 and 1-1 in the league, previously had a fancy passing game that featured quarterback Jason Martian and wide receiver Aaron Boone. The yardage was adding up, but not the victories.

“We played it a little more conservatively, we tried to run more,” Mahoney said. “They were doing a good job of meeting us up the middle, but we made positive yardage. Sometimes one at time.”

Actually it was closer to four. Villa Park runners carried the ball 43 times for 187 yards. Martian passed 13 times, completing seven for 114 yards.

Although he didn’t pass as often as in previous games, Martian was the key to the Spartans’ offense. The senior ran for 76 yards in 16 carries, scored one touchdown rushing and threw for another score.

Don Bladow led Villa Park in rushing with 78 yards in nine carries.

Orange (3-4, 0-1-1) had trouble on both sides of the ball from the outset and trailed, 10-0, with 1 minute 18 seconds left in the half.

But the Panthers put together a four-play, 63-yard drive that ended in an 11-yard scoring pass from Josh Belovsky to Mark Lightfoot with 26 seconds left in the half. That made the score 10-7 and seemed to give Orange the edge heading into the locker room.