Cary-Grove wins big, rolls into 2nd round
The Cary-Grove football team has a habit of making the tough tasks look easy.
Winning first-round playoff games is anything but simple, yet the Trojans won their playoff opener for the fifth straight season with a 47-0 shutout of visiting Rockford Guilford in a Class 7A matchup in Cary Saturday night.
"We're proud of that," said Trojans senior fullback back Eric Chandler, who rushed for 72 yards and 2 touchdowns. "We've had a great tradition here the last five years and those guys before us have set a great example. We're just proud to be in the same category as them."
The Cary-Grove defense was categorically dominant against the Vikings (5-5), limiting them to 89 total yards and 5 first downs. Meanwhile, the Trojans' triple-option offense generated 250 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns on the ground.
No. 2 Cary-Grove (10-0) will host No. 7 St Charles East (8-2) in Round 2. The Saints defeated defending Class 7A champion Lake Zurich 17-13 on Saturday.
Cary-Grove scored on its first 3 possessions to take command early. After the defense forced a punt that Jake Underwood returned to the Guilford 35-yard line, the Trojans reached the end zone in 8 plays, capped by Alex Hembrey's 1-yard run.
The second touchdown was ad-libbed. Cary-Grove faced second-and-8 from the Guilford 31-yard line, when quarterback Tyler Krebs dropped back to pass. Seeing no one open, Krebs pulled the ball down and scrambled to his left, but he ran straight into the back of offensive lineman Augie Bobrytzke. Krebs kept his balance, however, reversed field and picked up three blockers who paved his way to the end zone for a 13-0 lead with 1:01 left in the first quarter.
Guilford's ensuing possession ended on the third play, when quarterback Jeff Janusevic was intercepted at his own 47-yard line by junior Trent Sorensen, who returned the ball up the right sideline to the Vikings' 18.
"I had no one around me and it was pretty much a gift, so it was a nice, easy play," Sorensen said.
The Trojans didn't pick up a first down, but kicker Marcus Kerrigan, who missed an earlier extra point, drilled a 27-yard field goal to extend the lead to 16-0 with 9:44 left in the first half.
The Trojans put the game away in the third quarter with touchdowns on their first 2 possessions. Hembrey capped a 57-yard, 7-play march with a 19-yard run.
After the defense forced the fourth of Guilford's 7 punts, the Trojans moved 50 yards in 4 plays. Chandler was the key figure on that drive, opening it with a 35-yard run up the middle and closing it out with a 5-yard touchdown run.
The defense limited the bigger Vikings to a lone first down in the second half by following the fundamental rules of Football Technique 101.
"They were definitely bigger than us, so we needed to have faster feet and lower pads, which is what we practiced all week," senior outside linebacker Rob Mago said. "We used a lot of outside blitzing instead of inside blitzing because their gaps on the offensive line were very small. Due to our lack of size at linebacker, we thought attacking from the outside in would be much better game plan."