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Joliet West topples Lincoln-Way Central
Updated: October 1, 2011 7:24PM
Joliet West suffered a direct hit to its offense when SaVaughn Alexander reinjured his surgically-repaired left knee Sept. 16 against Bolingbrook, leaving the senior running back sidelined the rest of the season.
“It wasn’t a bad hit,” Joliet West coach Jason Aubry said. “Sometimes you plant and you twist it and it goes.”
Alexander was coming off a 200-yard effort in a 35-28 loss to Sandburg, prompting Aubry to call his No. 1 ballcarrier “a beast.” Playing without Alexander would definitely be a burden for the Tigers.
But Joliet West responded to the setback with back-to-back SouthWest Suburban Blue victories, including a 31-19 win Saturday over visiting Lincoln-Way Central.
“They’re a good football team,” Lincoln-Way Central coach Brett Hefner said. “Offensively, they’ve got big-play capability. Defensively, their two linebackers (Nolan Springer and Matthew Koran) are as good as anybody in the league.”
Senior running back Ramarr Jordan led the ground attack for Joliet West (2-4, 2-2) with 23 carries for 180 yards and two touchdowns. Jordan opened the scoring with a 48-yard run midway through the first quarter and added a 42-yard touchdown to put West ahead 24-13 early in the fourth.
“Ramarr did a great job,” Aubry said. “We need somebody to step up. He’s our explosive back right now and Kameron (Hargrove), he’s our mudder right now. He’s digging out those tough yards.”
Speaking of tough yards, Brett Ditchman had 35 carries for 201 yards and two touchdowns for Lincoln-Way Central (1-5, 0-4). Ditchman’s 5-yarder cut West’s lead to 17-13 early in the third quarter.
Both teams struggled on their next two possessions before Jordan capped an eight-play, 88-yard drive with his 42-yard scoring run.
“That’s the drive that I wanted coming out of halftime,” Aubry said. “It didn’t happen and we had to have our kids respond, and they did. That’s huge, that’s huge for morale, having the kids know we can do this.”
Andrew Drummond kicked a 23-yard field goal, Korey Rogers scored on a 39-yard middle screen pass and Hargrove’s 5-yard run finished Joliet West’s scoring in the fourth quarter.
Central’s Kevin Ward caught a 12-yard scoring pass from Cobi Christiansen to complete the scoring.
“I thought our effort and our competitiveness was much improved over last week,” Hefner said. “But big plays are hard for us to come by, so we can’t do things that shoot ourselves in the foot.
“I thought offensively we controlled things. We just didn’t finish, and that’s a big part of it.”
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