Lakes rallies late to top Woodstock North

Updated: September 3, 2011 2:34AM

Lakes rallied from a 14-13 fourth-quarter deficit and beat Woodstock North 23-14 on Friday to improve to 2-0 on the season.

Tanner Blain’s 23-yard field goal with 9:25 left gave the Eagles a 16-14 lead.

Then, after an interception and 47-yard return by Levi Haymaker set up Lakes at the Woodstock North 24, the visitors clinched the win when Direll Clark scored his second touchdown of the game on a 1-yard run with 4:52 left.

“Defensively, we’ve done a good job in our first two games,” said Lakes coach Luke Mertens. “Obviously, we gave up a few big plays, but offensively, we did a good job of controlling the line of scrimmage.

Lakes led 13-6 at halftime, but Woodstock North (1-1) took the lead late in the third period.

That’s when Lakes went to work to earn the victory.

“We kind of felt this game was going to come down to the fourth quarter,” said Mertens. “We told our guys to be prepared to play four quarters every game.”

For the game, Clark rushed 25 times for 159 yards and the two scores.

As a team, Lakes ran the ball 45 times for 275 yards.

Chris Hoffman was under center for the first time, as he missed the opening win over Round Lake with an injury.

He was 6 of 10 passing for 41 yards.

Lakes’ second touchdown came on a halfback-option pass from Haymaker to Justin Bergeron.

Next Friday, Lakes will host Grant in its North Suburban Prairie opener.

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.