Pass comes at right time for Meadows

With the grass between the hash marks nothing but mud, and the rain coming down occasionally in buckets, finding the right time to try to throw the ball successfully Friday night at Conant proved quite a task.

But Rolling Meadows was up to it.

And the Mustangs picked a perfect time, answering a Cougars' third-quarter touchdown that cut the lead in half and gave the hosts some traction with a 61-yard touchdown pass from Jimmy Garoppolo to Mick Viken 12 seconds afterward en route to a 20-14 Mid-Suburban League crossover victory.

"We were drawing it up at halftime because their safeties were cheating up," Garoppolo said of the play-action pass. "Great call by the coaching staff there.

"That was huge. It changed the whole game around."

And it was quite a different approach for Meadows (2-1), which attempted only 2 passes in the first half, relying instead on the legs of Garoppolo (86 yards, 1 TD) and Daquan Edwards (58 yards, 1 TD) to do the heavy lifting in the opening 24 minutes.

"Our footballs were all waterlogged," Meadows coach Doug Millsaps said. "He was having a problem throwing it, so we just kept running."

Despite the third-quarter dagger, the Cougars (1-2) didn't give up, cutting the lead to 6 points on quarterback Sean Smith's TD run early in the fourth and then getting the ball into Mustang territory in the final minutes before the drive stalled.

"You watch them on film and they're the same way - every single game," Millsaps said of the Cougars. "I thought their kids played with a great deal of heart."