Scouting Vernon Hills @ Antioch
Vernon Hills (4-1, 3-0) at Antioch (3-2, 1-1)
When 7:30 p.m. today
Last week Vernon Hills def. Round Lake, 42-0; Antioch lost to Grant, 27-21.
Skinny Three points stood between Vernon Hills and a possible North Suburban Prairie Division title last season. The Cougars lost a nail-biting 38-35 decision to Antioch and have been waiting all this time to get another crack at the Sequoits. "This is a big game again for us," Vernon Hills coach Tony Monken said. "We feel that if we want to win the division, Antioch is one of two teams that we really need to beat every year." Monken said that Grant, which is on the schedule in two weeks, is the other-Monken and his players are looking forward to playing Antioch at full strength this year. Last season, the Cougars lost DaVaris Daniels to an ankle sprain on the first play from scrimmage. The injury wound up keeping him sidelined for three weeks. During the Antioch game, Vernon Hills also lost its starting tailback, a starting offensive lineman, a starting linebacker and its starting strong safety. Evan Spencer, one of the team's top receivers again this season, was also in and out of the game due to injury issues. "It was starting to look like a MASH unit over on our sideline," Monken said. "It's not an excuse, but it was pretty incredible." Vernon Hills played from behind for much of the game and almost completed an improbably rally. But Antioch picked off a 20-yard pass that the Cougars sent into the end zone with less than a minute to play-Speaking of passing, Vernon Hills got on a bit of a roll in that department last week against Round Lake. Sophomore quarterback Steve Nelson threw 3 touchdowns passes (to Daniels, Zach Kisley and Spencer) on his way to 147 total passing yards. He completed 6-of-7 passes. "Obviously, we're still a run-oriented team, but Round Lake was giving us the pass, trying to do everything they could to stop our running game. We were able to adjust. (Steve) did a nice job."-Antioch also favors a strong run game and got a great effort last week out of Josh Guardarrama, who rolled up a career-high 146 yards and 2 touchdowns on 19 carries against Grant. Antioch's problem against Grant was turnovers. The Sequoits had five of them, including three lost fumbles.