Dundee-Crown still plugging away despite nasty losing streak

Updated: October 3, 2011 7:41PM

With the high school football regular season two-thirds complete, first-year Dundee-Crown coach Vito Andriola has a whole new appreciation for the challenges facing his beleaguered program.

The Chargers saw their losing streak reach 23 games with last week’s 25-6 loss against Woodstock North, and a second straight winless season looks like a distinct possibility with Crystal Lake South, Cary-Grove and Jacobs looming in the final three games of the season.

Andriola came to D-C with a track record of engineering turnarounds after helping get Grayslake’s program on track as head coach from 2001-04 and then doing the same as an assistant at Glenbrook South the past six years. Getting the Chargers to a point where they’re playing winning football might take a little extra time and patience.

“We’re trying to build a program from the bottom up,” Andriola said. “There’s going to be pitfalls, but I’m not pleased at all with the results. It’s very discouraging, but we’ve got to keep working at it.

“Teaching kids how to win is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

It doesn’t help that Dundee-Crown will likely be without quarterback Garrett Ryan for the second straight game this Friday after the junior injured his shoulder in Week 5. The Chargers were also without their leading rushers, senior Ardian Asani and sophomore Cody Lane, for stretches earlier this season.

Despite all the gloom and doom surrounding a program that hasn’t won since 2009, there have been some signs of progress.

Dundee-Crown was tied at 6 at halftime of last week’s game and held a 14-13 lead at halftime against McHenry back in Week 3. Those good starts didn’t hold up, though, as a lack of offseason strength training prior to Andriola’s arrival in late February began to take its toll.

“The encouraging thing is we’re practicing decent,” Andriola said. “The discouraging thing is we’re running into teams that are just physically better than us.

“Sometime we battle ourselves and we’re our own worst enemies. It’s hard to put your finger on it. We’re physically young, and I think that’s the most telling part of it. Sometimes we have trouble competing with teams that are more physical than us.”

Bartlett’s Butler running hard

Much is made of Bartlett’s high-flying passing attack, which is led by Air Force-bound quarterback A.J. Bilyeu and includes standout receiver Zach Karys and talented tight end Lorenzo Mitchell.

What isn’t discussed as much is a solid running game headlined by a rising star for the Hawks.

While seniors Nate Massey and Andrew Martinec and junior Aaron Everson all play key roles, it is 5-foot-9, 175-pound sophomore James Butler who leads the ground attack.

Butler was good for 66 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries in last week’s 45-10 victory at South Elgin. For the season Butler has a team-best 396 rushing yards on 71 carries to go with seven total touchdowns.

“Butler is carrying the load and he’s getting the hard yards,” Bartlett coach Tom Meaney said. “We’re really happy with the sophomore. He doesn’t want to go down.”

Rockets getting defensive

Burlington Central posted its second shutout of the season and extended its streak of holding opponents to single-digit scoring totals to four games with last week’s 33-0 win at Genoa-Kingston.

The Rockets are allowing an area-best 9.7 points per game this season going into Friday’s Big Northern East showdown with undefeated Harvard. The last time Burlington Central had two shutouts in the same year was 2006, and that Rockets squad advanced all the way to the Class 4A quarterfinals.

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