Lisle loses homecoming game to Plano

As far as starts go, Friday night's couldn't have been much better for Lisle as the Lions hosted Plano at Benedictine University in an Interstate Eight Conference Small Division tilt.

The day-long rain ceased just before kickoff, a boisterous homecoming crowd was on hand and the Lions forced a turnover on the game's first possession, then used a 57-yard screen pass from Chris Wray to Anthony Ventrella to set up Wray's 16-yard touchdown hookup with Ryan Liss for a quick 7-0 lead.

Unfortunately for the Lions, that was the end of the night's highlights as the Reapers used a punishing running game to score the next 30 points on the way to a 30-14 victory.

"I couldn't ask for a better start with the way the team's been struggling, but we just can't sustain anything," said Lisle coach Dan Sanko, whose squad fell to 1-4 overall and 0-2 in the IEC. "That's how it's been all season. Any little thing we can do wrong we do. We just keep shooting ourselves in the foot."

On the other side Plano coach Jim Green had been waiting all season for the feet of senior running back J.J. Cannon to start chewing up yardage. His wait ended Friday night when Cannon ran for a personal-high 246 yards with 3 touchdowns, while the Reapers totaled 353 yards on the ground in 54 time-consuming attempts.

"It was just a bunch of blocking, our linemen getting on their guys and on this turf field, you just get more traction," Cannon said. "The blocking was just amazing; there were a lot of holes to pick through."

Just 61 seconds after Lisle scored, Cannon helped give the Reapers (4-1, 2-0) a lead they wouldn't relinquish as he swept 77 yards to the end zone before quarterback Johnny Mendez added a 2-point conversion run for an 8-7 lead. Cannon then capped a 12-play drive on Plano's next possession with a 7-yard run and his own 2-point conversion for a 16-7 halftime advantage. His final score, this one from 56 yards out, capped a 98-yard drive and made it 22-7 late in the third quarter.

"We've been waiting for that from him," Green said. "Teams have been keying on him, so this was the game we were waiting for him to have. We knew what he was capable of doing, especially getting him back on turf."

Mendez's 3-yard plunge gave Plano its final score before Wray bookended his TD passes to Liss with a strike from 15 yards out with four minutes to play to close the scoring.

"We're not very good right now," Sanko said. "We put our heads down when things get tough; we're just not very resilient."