Roth, Klett power Lake Zurich's first win

Clearly, the star of the Friday night portion of this North Suburban divisional crossover game was Lake Zurich junior Kyle Roth.

Two plays into the contest, he'd gotten behind the Zion defense, and quarterback Joey Lindstrom found Roth for a 62-yard TD pass.

The next time Roth touched the ball, he dashed 70 yards to the Zion-Benton 9.

And soon after his heroics, it rained and rained - and rained some more.

The game was postponed, and in Saturday's sequel, it was pretty much the same plot but with a few more stars joining the show.

The sun came out and Roth and teammate Ben Klett both ended up with more than 100 yards rushing as the Bears registered win No. 1 of this football season. Lake Zurich stopped Zion-Benton 35-12.

"Last night was pretty fun,'' Roth said. "Zion likes to blitz, so we had a great play call on that pass."

And on that mad dash downfield that almost resulted in a second TD?

"The blocking was just right,'' Roth said. "I'm just mad I was caught."

The Friday night wait proved to be frustrating for Roth and the Bears.

"We knew every lightning bolt was going to delay the game,'' Roth said. "And there was about 20 of them."

Klett (16 carries, 146 yards) followed suit with the second TD of Friday's session, a 5-yard run. He also took one to the house from 82 yards out late in the third quarter.

In that third quarter, Lake Zurich ran 18 plays from scrimmage to Zion's 8 plays.

The Bears (1-3) only outscored the Zee-Bees 7-6 as Zion-Benton's Bryson Crump raced 85 yards with a Lake Zurich fumble for the Zee-Bees' first score of the game.

The Lake Zurich defense played well, allowing a score with 40 seconds to play in the game. Lake Zurich linebacker Jack Sanborn, registered 2 quarterback sacks.

"Today, we really brought the energy,'' Sanborn said. "We knew we needed this win."

Sanborn is well aware his school has produced some talented linebackers in the past.

"In the history of Lake Zurich, we've had some good ones,'' he said.

When weather conditions ended the Friday night portion of the game, the Bears (1-3) were up by 2 touchdowns. And Lake Zurich took over at the Zion 30-yard line some 17 hours after the game had started on Friday night.

Another big pass play, this time from Lindstrom to John Strojny, set the ball at the Zion 1. Stojny's number was called for the touchdown, and the Bears took a 21-0 lead to halftime.

Roth (14 carries, 105 yards) has shown he can be an effective back this season.

"I thought I had a good sophomore year,'' Roth said. "I was in the varsity camp all summer long and fought like a dog for this job."

Lindstrom scored his team's final touchdown on a 1-yard run in the fourth quarter following a Zion fumble.

Zion-Bentn's DeAndre Green scored the game's final touchdown from 2 yards out as the Zee-Bees fell to 2-2.