Cocroft carries West Aurora to victory
Glenbard East football coach Dennis Lueck had a resigned look only a bitter loss could produce.
His Rams, however, had no solution for West Aurora senior Markus Cocroft, who had 3 electrifying touchdowns in the Blackhawks' 33-27 DuPage Valley Conference victory Friday night in Aurora.
Glenbard East mounted a furious fourth-quarter rally, and the game ended when quarterback Jack Merrithey, after an interminable scramble, slipped and fell at the Blackhawks' 33-yard line.
Cocroft was the Blackhawks' catalyst the entire evening. He scored on a wide-receiver slip screen from 52 yards out, seemingly making half the Rams' defense miss as he traversed the field from left to right to put West Aurora ahead 6-0.
"It's one of our special plays," Cocroft said. "The coaches tell me to go to the house with it. Whoever (the linemen) don't block, I try to make (the defenders) miss."
Merrithey gave Glenbard East its only lead of the game with a 26-yard scamper late in the second quarter, but opposite number John Nunnally directed West Aurora with a 10-play, 86-yard response Leon Spears cashed in from a yard out.
Glenbard East (2-2, 0-2) tried a Hail Mary pass at the end of the half that Cocroft turned into his own highlight reel. The two-way starter intercepted the ball at his own 32, evaded several tacklers and picked up a convey to give West Aurora (3-1, 1-1) a 19-7 halftime lead with the 68-yard return.
"Special players make special plays," West Aurora coach Buck Drach said. "Markus is pretty special."
"Probably not a good decision to go for it," Lueck said of the pass with 1.8 seconds to play. "We had a couple of breakdowns on their big plays."
Cocroft then opened the scoring in the second half with a third-and-goal play from the 8-yard line, completely freezing a defensive back with a spin move that gave West Aurora a 26-7 lead.
When Nunnally, who finished with 203 yards on 9 completions, negated a Matthew Clark scoring run with one of his own, West Aurora seemed comfortably ahead, 33-14, with 8:54 to play.
But Glenbard East, which had 30 first downs in the game, never relented. Merrithey, who 218 yards passing and 76 rushing, engineered two mores scores, the second on a 25-yard strike to Nick Hogan, to bring Glenbard East within 33-27 with 2:03 remaining.
After a three-and-out, the Rams drove to the Blackhawks' 22-yard line, only to see their comeback attempt unravel.
"We fought the whole game," Lueck said.
Garrett Rivers had 119 combined rushing and receiving yards for West Aurora.