Lake Zurich 39, Warren 7

Big plays led to a big win for Lake Zurich on Friday night.

Through the air, on the ground and with their defense, the Bears came up big over and over again in defeating visiting Warren 39-7 in North Suburban Conference Lake Division action.

The victory moves Lake Zurich to 3-1 overall and 2-0 in the Lake. Warren drops to 1-3 and 1-1.

"(Lake Zurich head coach Bryan) Stortz told us before we came out that our team is all about big plays and that we needed to make big plays," Lake Zurich running back Jon Janus said. "And that's exactly what we did tonight."

Call Janus the ring leader.

He made quite a few big plays of his own.

He put Lake Zurich on the board in the first quarter when he turned a pass from quarterback Bobby DeLeo into a monster 59-yard touchdown.

DeLeo's next pass of the game went for a huge 44-yard completion.

Not bad for an option-devoted team that would love nothing more than to run the football into the ground.

"We knew that they were going to load the box and say 'Throw the ball to win.' So we were going to take some shots (at deep passing plays) and we decided we were going to take them early," Stortz said. "Fortunately, it worked out for us."

The plan to loosen up Warren's rushing defense with the pass worked, too.

Lake Zurich wound up tallying 343 yards on the ground, which included yet another big play from Janus.

In the third quarter, Janus saved the fireworks for a gigantic 44-yard touchdown run.

That gave Lake Zurich a 32-0 lead with 7:13 left in the quarter.

"If you're picking teams, I'm picking Jon Janus to play for me," Stortz said. "He played great. He had a lot of big plays."

Janus finished with 9 rushes for 139 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Teammate Adam Simpson (83 yards) also scored twice -- on a 1-yard run and an 11-yard run.

Lake Zurich's other touchdowns came on a 2-yard run by DeLeo and a 13-yard run with 2:52 left in clean up time by Andrew Maloney (77 yards).

"They're a very good football team, playing well in all areas," Warren coach Dave Mohapp said of Lake Zurich, which also came up big on defense. The Bears limited Warren to just 1 rushing yard in the first half and were just one missed assignment away from pitching a shutout. "We were loading up trying to stop the run and that lends itself to the big passes."

Warren did eventually come up with a big play of its own.

With 10:03 left in the fourth quarter, sophomore running back Greg Kennedy broke loose for a 91-yard run.

Without that run, the Blue Devils would have finished with just 20 rushing yards on the night.

"They played the run really well. They're a good defense," Mohapp said. "If we can get (Kennedy) loose a little bit, he can do some things. We just didn't do it enough. They did a great job of defending him. They were ready and did the things you have to do to take (Kennedy) out of it."

Kennedy finished with 122 yards on 17 carries.