There’s rain in the forecast for this Friday night. And Dominic Nelson probably doesn’t mind.

The Parkland senior running back had one of the best games of his career last Friday night in a driving rain at Stroudsburg High School. Nelson ran for five touchdowns to lead his team to a 35-0 win over the Mountaineers in a District 11 Class 6A playoff game.

Players struggled to find their footing on the wet artificial turf at SHS. But Nelson piled up 100 yards on 21 carries in the game.

“It’s tough but it’s football,” said Nelson. “I love to play it in the rain.”

The Trojans scored on four of their five first-half possessions. Only an errant snap on a field-goal attempt on the game’s first drive stopped them from scoring on all five first-half possessions.

A special teams play led to the first score. A blocked punt recovered by Christian Suriel gave Parkland the ball at the Stroudsburg 18-yard line. Three plays later Nelson ran for a nine-yard touchdown to make it 7-0 with 5:26 left in the game.

Nelson was handed the ball on all three plays of the drive and all but one play for the rest of the first half. He capped an eight-play drive with a 19-yard score with 7:43 left in the first quarter.

After Ja-lon Perkins recovered a Stroudsburg fumble and took it to the five-yard line, Nelson got his third touchdown on a one-yard run.

An errant Mounties punt snap helped Parkland start its next drive just 11 yards from pay dirt. It took four plays for Nelson to score from a yard out, giving his team a 28-0 lead with 47 seconds left in the game.

Nelson’s final score came at the end of a six-minute drive that spanned 51 yards in 12 plays, capped by the 5-9, 180-pound running back’s fifth score of the game. It marked his first five-touchdown game since his Pee Wee days.

“The dude’s one of a kind,” said Trojan defensive end Zak Fitzgerald. “He runs so hard. He’s a small man, but his motor is huge and his heart is huge. It’s awesome.”

“It’s a team win,” said Nelson. “We all played well and that’s what it’s all about.”

Fitzgerald and Parkland’s defense were equally awesome. The Mounties had trouble holding onto the ball, and the Trojans made them pay for it, turning two of Stroudsburg’s three turnovers into points.

Over the first half and before the mercy rule kicked in, Parkland’s defense made nine tackles for loss and didn’t allow one play over nine yards. The No. 4 seed Mounties (8-3) had just three first downs over their first seven possessions of the game.

“The defense was awesome tonight,” said Fitzgerald. “We’re doing very well in practice and we finally got everything done. Our coverages were good and we kept [Stroudsburg’s quarterback] in the pocket.

“Tonight we finally played a full game, played a full 48 minutes. We started fast and ended fast. It was a good game.”

The No. 5 seed Trojans (7-4) move on to the district semifinal to meet top seed Freedom Friday night at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium.