Stay Connected with YourSeason
Naperville North has happy homecoming with rout
| Corey R. Minkanic~For Sun-Times Media
Naperville North wasn’t about to let West Chicago come in and spoil its homecoming night.
Seniors Tyler Gehr and Matt Stacho made sure the game was in hand from the outset as the Huskies (3-2, 2-1 DuPage Valley Conference) rolled to a 45-7 win Friday over the Wildcats (0-5, 0-3 DVC).
“With all the ex-players coming back, they said, ‘Play for the person that wore your jersey before,’” Gehr said. “And I think a lot of us picked that up and played off it, and we all played strong. It was just great to all the ex-players from last year come back and we just put on a show. We really wanted to show them what we could do.”
Gehr (13-for-15 passing, 230 yards and two touchdown passes) connected with Stacho (8 receptions for 175 yards) in the opening minutes on a 62-yard touchdown strike that broke a scoreless tie with 10 minutes, 13 seconds to play in the first quarter. From there, the game was never in doubt.
The Huskies scored on a Dan Punkaitis 6-yard run later in the quarter and Gehr scored on runs of 4 and 5 yards in the second quarter. Gehr hooked up with DeSean Brown for a 4-yard touchdown in the third, and Ron Coluzzi’s 26-yard field goal put Naperville North ahead 38-7. Justin Williams capped the scoring with a 61-yard touchdown run in the fourth.
Only a 1-yard touchdown run by Wildcats quarterback Matt Green with 8:07 remaining prevented West Chicago from being shut out.
“We didn’t really get anything going offensively until the last quarter, but by then the game was out of hand,” West Chicago coach Paul Reinke said. “Defensively, too many mistakes early. They got up on us, and against a great team you can’t do that.”
Miguel Flores proved to be the Wildcats’ lone bright spot, rushing for 73 yards on 10 carries. He did the bulk of his damage in the fourth quarter.
“Obviously, they’re struggling a little bit and I think we played our best game of the year,” Huskies coach Sean Drendel said. “We were able to throw the football and run it a little bit, and our defense has been great. Coach (Anthony) Silvestri has done a great job with calling a great defense.”
The defensive coordinator said his team worked hard in practice to prepare for the Wildcats’ offensive attack.
“Anytime you play an option team, you’ve got to be really disciplined in your option responsibilities,” Silvestri said. “And that’s what we worked on all week, and we did a pretty good job of it, minus a few plays.”
Punkaitis rushed 11 times for 57 yards and Justin Williams racked up 66 yards on just three carries.
The Huskies play at Glenbard East next week.
© 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.
Cell Phone Alerts
Comments Click here to view or make a comment