The Bishop Hendricken football team would get back into the win column against the rival La Salle Rams last week in the state’s most anticipated game of the regular season.

After falling to the Rams in last year’s state championship, the Hawks would regain the advantage and run away with a 22-12 decision at La Salle.

The Rams got to work and would score on an 80-yard touchdown on the first play of scrimmage and then take a 12-7 lead into the halftime break.

It would be all Hendricken in the second half, though, as the rushing attack controlled the clock and added a pair of rushing touchdowns to wrap up the win.

Oscar Weah stole the show once again for the Hawks as he scored all three of their touchdowns while both he and fellow running back Ronjai Francis each racked up over 100 yards on the ground.

“Oscar is my brother. We’ve been playing since we were 4 years old. We have a connection, we don’t need to say anything, we can just look at each other and know it’s time to go. Tonight was his night and I tell him that when he’s feeling himself, keep it going. I was not worried about coming out because I had faith in him, I trusted our offense and our defense,” said Francis.

Hendricken struggled to find a rhythm in the early going, but junior defensive back Jonus Rivera would haul in an interception and return it to the La Salle 2-yard line, setting up Weah’s first score in the second quarter.

“We were having trouble executing early so we knew we had to set the tone. We made the play and started clicking. We just had to stay focused. We’re better this year and we knew that, we just had to lock in. It was big, we needed it,” said Rivera.

Hendricken’s defense would lock in and shut out the Rams in the second half while the Weah-Francis combo grinded out the La Salle defense to close the door.

After falling behind on the first play of the game, Francis and the Hawks were focused on maintaining their composure and moving on to the next play.

“Sometimes we just start off slow. We talked about it in practice that when things like that happen, we just have to stay calm. They scored in 10 seconds but there is a lot of game left, they scored first, but so what? It’s a 40-minute game. We just stayed composed and did our job. Look how it ended, we came through,” said Francis.

The Hawks and Rams appear to once again be on another collision course toward the state championship game next month. Each team has beaten North Kingstown while Central has struggled as of late.

Rivera, who transferred to Hendricken in the offseason, is hoping to get to the big game and was excited to make an impact in his first Hawks-Rams rivalry matchup.

“We just want to get back to the state championship. This win helps but we’re going to need to remember what happened in the first half and what happened (last year) in the state championship. We just need to execute and do what we do best,” said Rivera.

Francis added: “A win’s a win. We’re going to celebrate every win we get, we’re going to embrace it, but we’re not going to celebrate too hard because I have a feeling that we’ll see those boys again.”