CHAMPAIGN — If Friday night’s opening kickoff at Tommy Stewart Field wasn’t a sign of how Centennial’s Week 1 football game against Peoria was going to go, the next play sure was.

Peoria’s Dereon Mays returned the kick all the way to the end zone, but a penalty erased the score and made the Lions start on their own 13-yard line. So, Detaurion Pollard broke a couple tackles and ran the ball up the right sideline for an 87-yard touchdown on the very next play.

“Obviously, you don’t want to see that happen,” Centennial coach Kyle Jackson said. “I felt like we did a good job of playing hard and staying engaged. I never doubted our effort for a minute, but clearly, we’ve got a lot of things to clean up.”

The Lions kept the foot on the gas from there and cruised to a 42-0 road win.

This one stings for the Chargers (0-1). They knew they were the underdogs — Peoria (1-0) beat them 56-21 last year, made the Class 5A quarterfinals and came into this season as the sixth-ranked team in the Illinois Class 5A AP preseason poll — but there was plenty of belief. The Chargers prepared all offseason for this game, ready to make a statement in Week 1 in front of their home crowd, so seeing that final score hurt.

“I definitely took it as a gut punch,” Centennial senior lineman Cooper Lang said. “We just have to fix the things where we messed up. That’s all we really can do right now.”

Peoria quarterback Breon Green was the star of the first half. He rushed for one touchdown and passed for another three, two of them to Mays and the other to Jaylen Rayford, to put the Lions up 34-0 heading into the locker room.

Green rushed for another touchdown to cap off Peoria’s first drive of the second half to start a running clock, and the rest of the game was just a formality.

“They’re a big, tough football team. They’re going to hit you hard, they’re going to play hard and fast, and you’ve got to be ready to do the same thing back to them,” Jackson said. “We’ve got to practice better. That’s the bottom line. We did some good things and bad things, more bad than good. We’ll go watch the film, find the positives and build from there.”

Simply put, the Chargers couldn’t get anything going, offensively or defensively. Even when they’d make a play to get some momentum brewing, it would just as quickly be taken away.

Midway through the second quarter with Peoria up 20-0, the Lions decided to go for it on fourth-and-10 from their own 5-yard line. Centennial’s defensive line put pressure on Green, and he threw an interception to Jayshawn Harris. That play would have set the Chargers up deep in enemy territory with a great opportunity to score, but a defensive penalty erased the play and gave Peoria a first down. Just a few plays later, the Lions were in the end zone yet again.

“We just have to fix the mistakes,” Lang said. “It was a mistake-heavy game on our part, and we have to fix those little things. That’s what really ate us up.”

If there’s any silver lining for the Chargers, it’s that they got this game out of the way in Week 1 and not in the playoffs, which they plan on returning to after breaking their three-year run of postseason appearances in 2024. Centennial will play crosstown rival Champaign Central (0-1) next Friday at Tommy Stewart Field, an opportunity for both teams to get their first win.

“Back to the drawing board,” Jackson said. “We’ll show up (Saturday) morning for practice, watch film and figure out how to get better. That’s all there is to do. Same as any other week.”