Glenbard South muddles through for win

Fast starts don't always mean a whole lot.

When Glenbard South scored its second touchdown on its sixth play from scrimmage, the Raiders looked like they would rout DeKalb on Friday night. Instead they had to muddle through for a 21-14 Western Sun Conference victory.

"We would have liked to have seen maybe a different score up on the scoreboard, but a win's a win, and we have to be happy about that on homecoming," senior linebacker Brian Duffy said.

"We got off to a fast start, but to DeKalb's credit they kept battling and we made some mistakes," Raiders coach Dan Starkey added. "We turned the ball over too many times tonight, but our defense battled and dug in. Unfortunately, we gave up a couple of silly scores here in the fourth quarter."

Quarterback Trace Wanless scored twice in the first five minutes of the game, on runs of 13 and 11 yards, but the Raiders (3-2, 2-1) only got one more touchdown, a 16-yard John Hentges run on the opening drive of the third quarter. On a rain-soaked field that was about all the Raiders offense could muster, in part because of its 5 turnovers.

"We just didn't get it going for whatever reason," Starkey said. "We've still got to get our running game going a little bit better, but they did what they had to do to get a win. That's the most important thing."

The Glenbard South defense - playing without injured All-Area defensive end Austin Teitsma - shut down the Barbs' passing game, sacking quarterback Frank Petras 6 times and intercepting 2 DeKalb passes. The one exception was backup QB Bobby Russell's 14-yard TD pass to Dylan Donnelly with 5:48 left to play to break up the shutout.

"We had Pat Childs step up, and I think he had about 4 or 5 of those sacks," said Duffy, who had one of the interceptions. "He really came up big for us, played a big role for Austin Teitsma."

DeKalb (1-4, 0-3) got its second touchdown with three seconds left in the game on Robbie Miller's 93-yard fumble return.

"This year has been kind of an up-and-down year, but when we put it all together we can be pretty good," Starkey said.