L-W East rebounds with big win

Updated: March 22, 2011 4:18PM

Lincoln-Way East rebounded from last week's loss to Wheaton North by beating Joliet West 42-0 Friday in the Southwest Suburban Blue Conference opener for both teams.

The Griffins' Paxton VanBaber recovered a muffed punt by a Joliet West player at the West 26. Four plays later, Dean DalSanto scored from the five to make it 7-0 with 7:08 to play in the first quarter.

East (2-1, 1-0) scored on its next possession when quarterback Blake Winkler hit Tyler Starke with a 33-yard touchdown pass to make it 14-0 with 7:08 left in the quarter.

The Griffins' Kyle Langenderfer intercepted West quarterback's Zack Divarco's pass and returned it 33 yards for a score to make it 21-0 with 6:28 to play in the second quarter. DelSanto later added a 4-yard touchdown run with 45 seconds to play in the period to make it 28-0.

Two touchdown runs by Max Bayer of four and 19 yards in the third quarter ran the score to 42-0 and the start of a running clock with 2:29 remaining in the third quarter.

"This was kind of the medicine we needed to refocus and regroup after the loss to Wheaton North. I give a lot of credit to the kids for responding, not just tonight, but in practice all week. We didn't want to let a Week 2 game define us and this was a good step in the right direction," said East Coach Rob Zvonar.

Joliet West Coach Jason Aubry was proud of the way his defense played against the Griffins.

"Our defense came out to play tonight and they played hard and did some good things. We knew what they wanted to do. They run a power, and we wanted to stop that and we did. Their run game didn't hurt us. They hurt us with the pass. I think our defensive guys came to play tonight. We had some guys on that field who busted their tails the whole game, and I'm very proud of them," Aubry said.

West's record fell to 0-3 and 0-1 in the conference. East tallied 19 first downs to West's 4 first downs. The Griffins' Winkler finished 12 of 22 passing for 200 yards and one touchdown.

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