West Aurora seeks more consistency on offense

Updated: September 19, 2011 9:46PM

Without a doubt, the future of the West Aurora offense looks special.

Sophomore quarterback Quintez Jones has shown that in limited action this year, and he proved it yet again in Friday night’s 35-20 loss to Naperville Central. He stood tall in the pocket and delivered a rope to Cole Childs, hitting the speedy junior wide receiver on the numbers and in stride en route to a 68-yard touchdown.

Jones is athletic, but he’s not the type of breakaway, make-you-miss runner as say, Aurora Christian’s Anthony Maddie or Geneva’s Matt Williams. At least not yet. But he can throw a great ball, and if he is flushed, he can move his feet and create positive yardage.

But Friday night also showed how raw he is. In the second half, as the Blackhawks were hoping to get back into the game, Jones skipped two passes to Childs while rolling out on bootlegs. He also tucked and ran a little too quick at times, rather than buying time to throw by sliding in the pocket.

That eventually led to senior Richie Renner coming in to direct the offense. And while Renner was able to complete some passes, he also missed badly on two throws that were intercepted.

“I feel like every week our defense is going out and playing their hearts out and offensively we’re not getting it done,” Blackhawks coach Nate Eimer said.

The frustration is understandable. The defense is ready to win games now. Senior running back Shon Enoch can offer enough balance in the run game. But the offense, with Jones, Childs, fellow junior receiver Anthony Oros and developing tight end Spencer Thomas (along with some promising young receivers on the sophomore squad) will probably be ready to win games next year, in year two of Eimer’s offense.

That’s not good enough for Eimer — or for his team — so the Blackhawks will continue to work toward more consistency on offense.

“We’ve got to get (the quarterback position) situated a little bit better because obviously the last couple weeks it’s not working, the whole rotation thing,“ Eimer said. “We’ll keep working at it and we’ll get better. We just have to get some things figured out.”

Quotes of the week

“We have the talent and we are hard workers, but it has been hard for us to wake up for pretty much every game this season, and we haven’t come out and played as hard as we can. It is something that we’ve been working on. I think it showed in the second half when we stepped it up and pulled things together.” — ACC running back Luke Dickerson after his team’s 38-12 victory over winless Chicago Christian

“We‘re surprised but we‘re not crazy — we still have five games to play. We‘d like to play and get better, and we can get better.” — Yorkville coach Karl Hoinkes on his team’s 4-0 start. It’s the first time the Foxes are off to such a start in over a decade.

Gray matters

Batavia coach Dennis Piron calls senior Jon Gray a “gym rat.”

After the way he’s played the first four weeks during the Bulldogs’ 4-0 start to the season, there’s another word that may be more appropriate: Ballhawk.

Gray has five interceptions on the season, two coming Week 1 against Marmion Academy and three coming Friday against Air Force-bound Bartlett quarterback A.J. Bilyeu.

“Jon is an exceptional athlete,” Piron said. “What a year Jonny is having. I couldn’t be happier for a kid like him.”

Gray took one of his interceptions 79 yards for a touchdown after reading that the play called would be a hitch and jumping the route. On another of his Friday interceptions, he was paired up against track star Zach Karys, and he broke that play down as well.

“He slanted in and faded out and I just tried to stay on his hip,” Gray said. “He got past me a little bit, but I caught up as best I could. Initially, he had the ball, but I just ripped it away from him and got to the ground.”

Gray is also helping quarterback Noel Gaspari out offensively. He caught two passes for 50 yards, both earning first downs, against Bartlett.

Oswego rallies behind home crowd

Heading into Friday’s annual crosstown rivalry game with Oswego East, the Oswego Panthers were in a must-win situation — despite having never lost to their “little brother.”

Oswego was 1-2, while Oswego East was 2-1 and a play or two away from being 3-0.

The community knew it was going to be a special game, and 5,300 people were on site to watch the Panthers rally from a 21-7 deficit to win 35-28.

According to Oswego athletic director Steve McInerney, city fire code forces the school to count both teams and training staffs, bands, cheer, poms, and volunteers as part of the official attendance — which would have put the school well over the original capacity of the stadium. Because of that, the school rolled back temporary fencing to create more space, which increased the stadium’s max capacity to 5,910.

“This is a testament to our community when we have that kind of a showing on a Friday night to support both teams,” Panthers coach Dave Keely said. “That is what high school football is all about. The stands were packed and people were lining the field. It was exciting and how many times does a high school kid get to play in front of a crowd like that?”

Red Ramblers ‘D’ coming up big

Mooseheart pitched its second shutout of the year Saturday in a 42-0 pasting of Christian Liberty Academy, and the defense has allowed a total of 21 points through four games.

While the offense is averaging 38.5 points per game, the defense has been the strength of this team dating back to the end of the 2010 season when the Red Ramblers finished 3-2 while allowing 9.2 points per game during that stretch.

“Dating back to last year, our last seven games we‘re only allowing an average of a touchdown a game,” Mooseheart coach Gary Urwiler said. “Our guys understand what we want to do on defense and we get at it. Our speed helps us. We attack the ball. It sounds like a no-brainer, but we really focus on fundamentals - we try to be solid tacklers. We focus a lot on tackling. We practice it and it pays off for us.”

Paul Johnson, Mike Knapp and Eddie Burns contributed to this report

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