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Lakes’ lone score holds up
Vernon Hill's #33 Tyler Alper closes in on Lakes's #14 Andrew Spencer during their game at Vernon Hills Friday evening 9-23-11.. | Kevin Tanaka for Pioneer Press.
Updated: September 24, 2011 1:00AM
Lakes set up next Friday’s first-place showdown with sister-school and North Suburban Conference Prairie Division rival Antioch with a 7-6 win over host Vernon Hills on Friday.
But it wasn’t easy for the Eagles (4-1 overall, 2-0 North Suburban Prairie). Antioch will come into the contest perfect at 5-0 and 2-0 in the division.
Lakes could manage only 19 yards on 19 plays offensively in the first half, but the Eagles did get a big play from Andrew Spencer when he returned a Vernon Hills’ punt 77 yards for the Eagles only touchdown of the game early in the second quarter.
“That’s what (Spencer) can do,” said Lakes coach Luke Mertens. “He’s very shifty on returns like that.”
Tanner Blain provided the margin of victory with his extra point kick after Spencer’s touchdown return.
Blain also came up with a key defensive play with 4:44 left in the game when he picked off a pass from Vernon Hills quarterback Steve Nelson to stop a Cougar drive on the Lakes’ 25-yard line.
Nelson did engineer an 80-yard scoring drive with under two minutes to play, resulting in a nine-yard touchdown pass to Sam Maloof to cut the lead to 7-6 with 31 seconds remaining, but his two-point conversion pass failed and Lakes was able to hold on for the victory.
“I thought our defense played extremely physical,” Mertens said. “We did a good job preparing in practice during the week. Fortunately, we had already played teams with (Vernon Hills’) type of offense this season.”
Lakes struggled offensively for most of the contest. Eagles’ quarterback Chris Hoffman completed 12 of 15 passes, but for only 52 yards.
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