MACHESNEY PARK — Harlem likes to start out east or west, then break its runs north.

Boylan keeps it simpler.

“I never try to go east and west. Always north,” Boylan fullback Matt McCrudden said.

Simpler proved better on a muddy field as Boylan steamrolled Harlem 40-14 Friday night in a battle of NIC-10 unbeatens to win its third consecutive conference title.

Harlem (8-1) had trouble with the slick field all night.

“It was highly impossible,” tight end Casey Beck said. “Every time I tried to make a cut, I’d slip.”

“In a mudder like this, it’s to their advantage,” Harlem coach Jim Morrow said of the bigger Titans. “But we didn’t do anything to change the momentum.”

The Huskies, who had never before started better than 3-0 in more than eight decades of football, took the momentum at the start. After Boylan fumbled a punt — it’s only fumble and only turnover of the night — Harlem cashed in on a 23-yard, fourth-and-10 pass from Keenan Kellett to

Tyler Cox for a 7-0 lead.

Kellett scored on a 6-yard run to cap a 64-yard drive the next time Harlem had the ball to give the Huskies a 14-0 lead after one quarter.

But then Harlem fumbled a punt. McCrudden (82 yards on six carries) scored five plays later from 1-yard out.

Paul Barmore (124 yards on nine carries) then scored on a 91-yard run to tie it.

Will Sahlstrom (159 yards on nine carries) scored on runs of 50 and 49 yards to put Boylan ahead 26-14.

After Harlem lost that fumbled punt, Boylan gained 253 yards on 14 plays to score four touchdowns.

“They gained momentum on us on that punt,” Beck said. “We had to gain it back, and we couldn’t.”

The Titans finished with 454 yards rushing on 45 carries. McCrudden’s 48-yard run made it 33-14 in the third quarter. And Michael Morman threw a 15-yard TD pass to Sahlstrom in the fourth quarter.

Harlem kept fighting. “Their linebackers were killing us,” Boylan guard Andy Russell said. “They really hit hard and had a lot of tenacity,” Boylan center Nate Fischer agreed.

Jon Anderson epitomized that tenacity. The defensive tackle separated his shoulder, but returned to the game after having it painfully popped back in.

But he couldn’t stem the tide.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” Anderson said of Boylan scoring six consecutive touchdowns after Harlem led 14-0. “I felt for sure we had our defensive scheme down.”

Boylan’s Barmore said it was a case of the Titans never letting up once they had momentum. “Once you lose momentum, the game can slip at any point,” he said.

Harlem, which fumbled seven times although it lost only two, found that out the hard way.

“We sunk into a hole, and the hole kept getting deeper,” Morrow said. “The conditions were worsening as the hole was getting deeper, and we couldn’t do our thing. Boylan is a good team and they used their personnel wisely.”

- Matt Trowbridge, rrstar.com