Sycamore able to shut down Kaneland

The mild drizzle at Engh Field in Sycamore began just at the beginning of the second quarter and it continued slowly throughout the game. Likewise, Sycamore's offense began its scoring early in the second quarter, and continued slowly and steadily on its way to a 19-0 Northern Illinois Big 12 East Conference win over visiting Kaneland Friday night.

Neither Kaneland quarterback Jack Douglas, nor head coach Tom Fedderly were looking to make excuses, but rather point out that the credit was deserved by their opponent.

"The rain didn't help, but both teams have to deal with it," Douglas said when asked if the weather was a factor. "Things just didn't go our way. They're offense did a great job. They had like 17-18 play drives, so you have to give them a lot of credit."

"To their credit, they put some long drives together and hung onto the ball that limited our possessions," Fedderly said. "All of the credit goes to them. They played a great game. They executed and we didn't. They did a great job, and to get a shutout against us, you really have to give them credit."

Both teams seemed to take a liking to the steady drizzle early in the game, as the defenses rose to the occasion to hold their opponents scoreless for the first quarter. Sycamore's second drive began with 6:49 left in the first quarter and the Spartans slowly and methodically drove 17 plays for 72 yards that took more than 9 minutes off the clock and culminated in the first points of the game when backup running back Peyton Wiegmann scored from 4 yards out to give Sycamore the first lead of the game 6-0.

Kaneland (3-3, 1-2) was intercepted on the first play of its next possession and Sycamore (3-2, 1-0) drove down to the Knights' 15-yard line before the drive stalled and the Spartans turned it over on downs. However, after forcing the Knights to punt, the Spartans scored on the first play of their next drive on a 52-yard strike from quarterback Ty Sulaver to Robert Cole for a 13-0 Spartan lead just before the half.

Sycamore put more distance between its visiting conference rival late in the third quarter on a 9-yard run by junior Luke Ryan to go up 19-0.

Kaneland's best opportunity to get on the board came on its next possession. Several short runs by Jonathan Alstott and a long pass from Douglas to Josh Marczuk for 36 yards set the Knights up on the Spartan 15-yard line. But the Knights fumbled the next snap and the Spartans recovered, taking over the ball with 8:51 left in the game and running out the clock to end the game.

Sycamore head coach Joe Ryan jokingly credited Mother Nature for a hand, but when it really came down to it, he pointed to his team's execution and ability to control the time of possession to limit Kaneland's offense.

"Thank God for Mother Nature," Ryan joked after the game. "If you can take possessions away from them (by controlling the clock) that's huge because they're so explosive offensively. I thought we ran the ball really well tonight, and I thought our backup running back (Wiegmann) ran the ball really well tonight too. It's hard to play in this type of weather, but I thought our kids played very well. I told our kids they were going to get their shots, and to just stay with them."