There's a lot of hard work still to be done and a lot of big games still to be played, but so far, the Lake Oswego football team has been flat-out great.

The Lakers proved that again — for a fifth week in a row — on Friday, Oct.1, opening Three Rivers League play with a dominant 35-0 victory over Tigard at Lake Oswego High School.

"Yeah, it was pretty fun," said Lake Oswego senior running back Gabe Olvera, who finished with eight rushes for 45 yards and one score, and nine catches for 152 yards and another two touchdowns. "Our whole team can make plays."

"I thought defensively, we stepped up. It was a team effort," said Laker senior wide receiver/free safety Dylan Layne, who caught three passes for 24 yards and one TD, and also helped hold the Tigers to 203 yards in total offense. "We had a good game plan, and I thought we executed it, and we didn't allow much."

With the win — the Lakers' fifth straight — Lake Oswego improved to 1-0 in Three Rivers League play and 5-0 overall. Tigard, meanwhile, saw its two-game winning streak snapped and fell to 0-1 in TRL play and 2-3 overall.

"We just need to come together as a whole," said Tigard senior wide receiver/defensive back Kellen Jolley, who rushed twice for 14 yards and also made an interception. "We'll play a stretch of great football, then take a couple plays off and you see what happens as a result tonight."

"There were a lot of different little things that we were keying in on, some very specific things to try and get our defense right and get our offense right," added Tigard senior tight end/linebacker Elijah Jackman. "We just need to focus on ourselves, our position groups and key on their film."

Lake Oswego began to put the hurt on Tigard right from the get-go on Friday, opening with a defensive stop and following with a 56-yard scoring drive. That series was highlighted by a 37-yard completion from senior quarterback Jack Layne — he went 18 of 20 passing for 248 yards with four TDs and one interception — to Olvera, and two plays later, Olvera's 2-yard scoring run out of the wildcat formation.

After a trade of interceptions — LO junior Henry Smith picked off Tigard junior QB Brady Jordan and Jolley grabbed a Jack Layne pass — and a stop by the Laker "D," Lake Oswego boosted its lead to 14-0 two minutes into the second quarter.

Jack Layne connected with Olvera for 28 yards, hit senior Cade Waller for 14 more, then found Dylan Layne on a crossing route for a 6-yard score and a two-TD lead.

Two series later, after getting another stop and taking over at the Tigers' 44, the Lakers scored in just three plays. Senior Justius Lowe took an end around for 36 yards, Olvera picked up two more, and then, Jack Layne found Olvera over the middle for a 6-yard TD pass and a 21-0 lead with 4 minutes, 8 seconds left in the half.

The Lakers then got the ball back just 2:10 later when senior lineman Gavin McGuire recovered a fumble by Tigard junior Luke Davis at the Lake Oswego 42.

"We've got a high-powered offense, and our defense, we're just some dogs," McGuire said. "Nobody has scored more than 14 points on us and Tigard scored zero tonight so we'll take it."

From there, LO needed just 1:01 to score, with Olvera running for 12 yards, Jack Layne hitting Dylan Layne for nine more, Jack Layne connecting with Olvera for 27 yards, and from there, finding Olvera again for another 11 yards, another TD and a 28-0 lead with :57 left before halftime.

The Lakers tacked on their final score on the opening series of the second half, marching 63 yards in just five plays, that drive capped when Jack Layne threw over the middle to Lowe for a 31-yard touchdown and a 35-0 edge that prompted a running clock the rest of the way.

Tigard's best series of the game came on its ensuing drive, with the Tigers marching 52 yards in five plays to the Laker 5-yard line. Junior running back Konner Grant carried three times for 22 yards on that drive, junior quarterback Cameron Masters-Doble hit junior A.J. Perez for 41, and Jolley took an end around for nine more.

But Masters-Doble missed on his next throw, lost 2 yards on a third-down keeper, then hit junior Theo Jones on the right side, only to see Jones get hit and fumble the ball away to McGuire.

"Coming in, I think they wanted to keep us off the field because we score pretty quickly," Dylan Layne said. "They tried doing that early, but we were able to get three-and-outs and force turnovers."

"We're just going to keep going with our guys. It's the core five guys," McGuire said, pointing to senior Matteo Tagliabue, senior Henry Francis, senior Paul Stephens and senior Zach Jarrett. "No group of five is better than us."

The Tigers, meanwhile, said they would learn from the loss and move forward.

"We know that Lake Oswego is … a great football team. We knew what it was going to take to beat them," Jolley said. "We knew it was going to take a little extra, and I think possibly, we just tried to do too much."

For the game, Grant carried 15 times for 70 yards and senior Braden Graf added 73 more on six carries late in the game.