Rolling Meadows stays stingy

Rolling Meadows' defense was superb and the offense was good enough in a 26-0 whitewash of visiting Hersey at Robert Hoese Field.

"I have to give credit to their defense," said Hersey coach Mark Gunther, who saw his Huskies fall to 0-5 overall in the Mid-Suburban East opener. "They we're physical and fast. They are a very good defense."

The Mustangs (3-2, 1-0) held the Huskies to 138 yards of offense, all on the ground, and forced 2 fumbles.

Two of the ringleaders were senior Dan Lowry and junior Colin Buscarini.

"We had to bounce back from a tough loss (21-20 to Fremd) last week," said Lowry, who recovered a fumble. "We took them out of what they like to do with our defense."

Buscarini accounted for 7 tackles, two of which were for losses, to go with 3 assists and a forced fumble.

Buscarini gets advice on how to improve his defense from his grandfather Tom, who starred for old St.George's high school in Evanston and then was the head coach at St. Patrick in Chicago.

"He comes to every game and afterwards, he tells me how I can do things better," said Buscarini. "He's strong on fundamentals. Tonight we just closed up their holes. We came in hard and fast."

The defense snuffed out Hersey's only chance to score by stopping the Huskies on the 1 with 10 minutes left after having a first-and-goal from the Mustangs' 8.

Garrett Peterson scored Meadows' first touchdown on a 1-yard run with 3:30 left in the first quarter. The score capped a 14-play, 78-yard drive.

Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo connected with Tony Taibi on the first of two touchdown catches. A 55-yarder with 1:53 left in the quarter made the score 14-0.

With 5:58 left in the half Taibi (5 catches, 131 yards) snared a 42-yard reception from Garoppolo, who was 10-for-27 for 212 yards.

Midway through the third quarter Garoppolo tossed a 34-yard scoring pass to Scott Schewmon.

"We thought we could take advantage of their defensive backs," Garoppolo said. "We've got some tall receivers and we thought we could throw over them."

"Tonight our defense did not give up the big play and that was the difference," said Mustang coach Doug Millsaps. "We responded well after last week's loss. As my coaches say, a win is a win."