Dahlke, Blue Devils come up big
If you haven't seen Warren running back Aaron Dahlke play this year, you aren't alone. Even some of his teammates have trouble seeing him, not to mention the Blue Devils' opponents.
Dahlke, you see, is listed in the program at 5 feet, 4 inches tall.
"I am 5-feet-2, maybe 5-3 on a good day," he said.
This probably helps explain why Lake Forest had so much trouble trying to stop the Devils senior in a key North Suburban Conference Lake division battle Saturday.
They couldn't find him.
Dahlke rushed for a career-best 127 yards on 17 carries to lift Warren in a 16-8 upset over the previously unbeaten Scouts at the new Lake Forest varsity field.
Warren evened its record at 3-3 and is tied for second place in NSC Lake division play at 3-1.
"This is a real big win for us," said Warren coach Dave Mohapp. "We haven't played real well in Saturday games this year -- last time we did at Maine South (40-6 Warren defeat), it didn't go so well. No we get to play some home games."
The win almost took a little longer to get.
Lake Forest scored its only touchdown late in the fourth quarter on a 10-yard swing pass from Thomas Rees to Kevin Finney (8 catches for 80 yards). The Scouts got the ball back and drove to the Warren 28. But on fourth down, with 57 seconds remaining, a pass into the end zone was incomplete and Warren held on.
The Blue Devils got to the 16-point advantage thanks to the hard-to-find Dahlke. He was tough to bring down in the first half and simple tough to catch in the third quarter.
With Warren holding a 9-0 advantage out of halftime, the Blue Devils went away from their sprint style offense and went right at the Scouts' defense.
On their second drive of the second half, Dahlke broke through the Lake Forest defense, broke a tackle in the secondary then outran everyone to the end zone. The 42-yard scamper gave Warren a 16-0 advantage.
"That was about as fast as these little legs go," Dahlke said referring to the long touchdown run. "I was just going as fast as I could and hoping I could get to the end zone before (Lake Forest) caught me."
With the two-score lead, it was up to the Warren defense to shut down the usually prolific offense for Lake Forest (5-1, 3-1).
"Warren made the plays today and we did not," Lake Forest coach Chuck Spagnoli said. "The credit goes to their coaches and kids."
After scoring over 30 points each of the last two weeks, the Scouts were able to muster only 4 first downs in the first half and 94 total yards.
"I think we kind of started slowly on defense to start the game and sometimes it takes a few plays to get up to game speed," Mohapp said. "But I thought those kids came up big and played well."
The Blue Devils defense forced 4 turnovers while sacking Lake Forest quarterbacks four times. Junior Tyreese Woodard had 3 of the sacks, while senior linebacker Tom Hajnos was one of the Devils top tacklers with 9.
"We just have never given up as a team," Hajnos said. "When things got tough we kept it together and today we came out and beat a very good 5-0 team on their field. This is a big win for this program."