Practice woes spell trouble for West

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Bad practices usually result in bad games.

West Aurora's football team had a week filled with both, ending in a somewhat stunning 42-28 loss to West Chicago Friday night.

"We had 20 kids (out of 60) missing on Tuesday," West (Aurora) coach Buck Drach said. "So you figure out how practice went."

Drach declined to comment why so many players missed Tuesday's practice.

Friday's game wasn't any better. The Wildcats broke a six-game losing streak by rushing for 363 yards and five of their six touchdowns.

West Chicago senior Alex Pirela put up all-American numbers, carrying 19 times for 174 yards. He scored on runs of l8, 14, 51 and 38 yards. And senior fullback Mike Dylla wasn't far behind with 116 yards in 25 carries and 1-yard TD plunge.

"We didn't stop the run this week, we didn't stop the run last week and we didn't stop the run the week before that," Drach said. "Plus, our offense didn't help out our defense very much."

The Blackhawks (3-5 overall, 1-5 DuPage Valley Conference) did make some big plays to sort of hang in the game. But the Wildcats (2-6, 1-5) jumped to a quick 21-0 lead and never really lost control.

Senior quarterback John Nunnally (8-of-21, 178 yards) did throw a pair of touchdown passes, 68 yards to Josh Zinzer and 20 yards to Markus Cocroft, but suffered a key interception on the opening drive of the third quarter.

Down 28-7 at the half, West drove to the West Chicago 30. Nunnally lofted a deep pass intended for Aviance King but the under-thrown ball was intercepted by West Chicago's Clark Hudmon at the 5.

Turnovers, or rather lack of them, also hurt the Blackhawks. West had a chance at an interception on West Chicago's first drive but was called for pass interference instead; and the Wildcats fumbled twice but the Blackhawks couldn't recover either miscue.

"I can't remember the last time we had a turnover. It's kind of been that way the last five weeks," Drach said.

Both Zinzer and Cocroft had outstanding games for the Blackhawks. Zinzer caught two passes for 111 yards, knocked down a pass on defense and blocked two PAT kicks while Cocroft caught four passes for 61 yards and returned a kickoff 80 yards for a touchdown.

Perhaps the public address announcer set the tone for the night when he welcomed fans to the game between "the West Chicago Wildcats and the East Aurora Tomcats."

When things go bad, they go really bad.