The Glenbard East football team brought bragging rights back to Lombard after going to Willowbrook and leaving with a 26-13 victory in the neighborhood clash Friday night in Villa Park.

The Rams, who lost to Willowbrook last season, overcame five turnovers (they coughed the ball up twice more but recovered) and put the game away with fourth-quarter touchdown runs by quarterback Jack Merrithey and running back Mathew Clark.

“Big hearts is what wins games when you have five turnovers,” said Merrithey, who finished with 83 yards rushing and 136 yards passing. “But we definitely can not have five turnovers again. We’ve got to work on that for next week and be more crisp.”

It was an inauspicious start for the Rams, who fumbled two plays into the game and turned the ball over again two plays into their second drive. The Warriors capitalized on the first takeaway as sophomore Jibril Jones (58 yards rushing) scampered in from 26 yards out.

The Rams finally got into a rhythm offensively in their third series, which ended with an 8-yard scoring strike from Merrithey to Aaron Hall to tie it at 7-7. Both teams played to a stalemate the rest of the half.

The second half started pretty much the same way as the Rams fumbled away their first possession. Again the Warriors cashed in, this time on a 15-yard run up the gut by Mike McLean (52 yards rushing) for a 13-7 lead.

However, the Rams cleaned it up from there and scored on their next two possessions — a 7-yard burst from Hall (43 yards rushing) and the go-ahead 7-yard run from Merrithey with 11:49 to play. Clark (72 yards rushing) iced the outcome with a 36-yard score with 2:07 left.

The defense did its part as well, forcing three punts and a four-and-out on the Warriors last four possessions.

For the Warriors, Dan Maxwell had two fumble recoveries and Mike Elgeness and Mike Kane each had interceptions.