High-powered Hawks soar past Saxons
Season openers are football's equivalent of an early pop quiz. No one is quite certain of the team's capabilities, and the test gives the team and coaches an idea of what works and where improvement is needed.
Schaumburg coach Mark Stilling sent his Saxons against high-powered Maine South Friday and came away with the feeling his team has a lot of improving to do before starting Mid-Suburban West play next month.
Maine South, ranked near the top of most Chicago-area preseason polls, coasted to a 52-20 victory at Conant's Charles Feutz Field.
"Maine South is a heck of a football team, Stilling said. "They were hitting on all cylinders, and we didn't do anything competitively to take them out of what they wanted to do."
Hawks coach Dave Inserra pulled Vanderbilt-bound quarterback Charlie Goro after one half in which he completed 18-of-30 passes for 256 yards and 2 touchdowns and ran for a third. An early touchdown that put the Hawks ahead 52-6 in the third quarter activated the running clock for most of the second half.
"I don't think anyone was expecting anything like this," Goro said. "The first couple of plays gave us a boost of confidence."
"I was disappointed about how we responded to adversity," Stilling said. "This is a great test for us. We've got to find ways to get better. We need to find ways to finish plays."
Saxons quarterback Anthony Iannotti put up good numbers in his first start, completing 15-of-18 for 194 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
His first scoring pass was a 52-yarder to Eric Hauser on the Saxons' first play from scrimmage, cutting Maine South's lead to 7-6 with less than 90 seconds gone in the first quarter.
That was as close as the Saxons would get, although Iannotti would connect on a 49-yard touchdown pass to Shepard Little in the third quarter and complete the scoring on a scrambling 39-yard run 5:30 left in the game. He finished with a team-best 70 yards rushing in 14 carries.
Maine South's Matt Perez scored 3 times on carries of 13, 11 and 8 yards, all in the first half. He finished with 76 yards in 7 carries.