Lincoln-Way East’s early efforts enough

Updated: September 23, 2011 10:57PM

Lincoln-Way East took advantage of Sandburg’s early miscues and won a convincing 31-7 game at home over the Eagles Friday in Southwest Suburban Blue Conference play.

The Griffins (5-0, 3-0) took their opening possession 69 yards in five plays to take a 7-0 lead behind a 25-yard scoring pass from quarterback Blake Winkler to wide receiver J.J. Robertson. Running back Tyler Starke had a 28-yard run in that possession.

Sandburg (4-1, 2-1) was forced to punt on its first possession but its punter could not handle the wet football, and East’s Kevin Bayer recovered it at the Eagles’s 12. Two plays later, Winkler found receiver Justin Corbett in the end zone with a 10-yard scoring strike to make it 14-0 with 7:30 to play in the first quarter.

The Griffins took advantage of another Sandburg turnover in the second quarter. East defensive tackle Matt Solner recovered a Sandburg fumble at the Griffins’ 41. Winkler hit Robertson with a 30-yard pass after a holding call on East, and then Starke ran it 20 yards to the 5. Winkler found Corbett in the endzone from 3 yards out to make it 21-0. A field goal made it 24-0 at halftime.

“There’s no doubt that they (East) are a very good football team,” Eagles coach Dave Wierzal said. “We feel like we played our first four weeks and made some mistakes and got away with them. We knew coming into this game we were not going to be able to make mistakes and get away with them.”

Griffins’ Coach Rob Zvonar was pleased with his team’s performance.

“It was good to get the short field early,” he said. “I thought our defense played extremely well. We have a long way to go to be the best we can be. On a night like tonight and with homecoming going on, we were happy to get out of here with a win.”

© 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.