Lake Zurich win over Warren outside the box

Some people were joking that he simply wanted to escape the cold, driving rain. But Lake Zurich head football coach Bryan Stortz insists there was a good reason he took in all of Friday's game against Warren from inside the dry and cozy press box.

After experiencing two straight losses - the second of which was a nasty thumping by Stevenson last week, he was ready to mix things up.

"Well, it was cold and rainy out there," laughed Stortz, playing along. "No, actually, I've thought a lot about (coaching from the press box) for a long time and you're a little nervous about it because you're not down on the field and you don't have as much touch with the players.

"But I trust our coaches down there and I just felt like I could see more from up (in the press box) and do a better job (calling plays) offensively and helping our defensive coaches, too. I felt we needed to try something different so that we could find a win."

The Bears found one all right, and boy did Stortz like the view from his new perch.

On its homecoming night, Lake Zurich put the hurt on a Warren team that rolled in with a sparkling 5-0 record and a high-octane offense that had strung together four straight 450-plus yard games.

The Lake Zurich defense was stingy and the offense had one of its best outings of the season in a 38-14 North Suburban Conference Lake Division victory. The Bears pull even at 3-3 on the season (2-2 Lake) while Warren, which totaled just 229 yards, drops to 5-1 and 2-1 in the Lake Division.

"The D-line was getting a really big push on their offensive line and that was opening up the gaps up front for the linebackers to come in," said Lake Zurich sophomore linebacker Mike Shield, who completely disrupted a third quarter Warren drive when he flattened running back Greg Kennedy for a 9-yard loss. "Defensively, it was just all around almost perfect."

The Bears got a picture-perfect game out of running back Jacob Brinlee. He's been rolling up the yardage this season but has struggled with fumbles in the last couple of games.

Not only did Brinlee keep the ball off the carpet, he also took it for quite a spin up and down the field. He rolled up 216 yards on just 12 carries and scored 3 touchdowns, including an 83-yarder in the first quarter that seemed to set the stage for whose night it would be.

"All week, I've been just holding the ball during practice, at all times, no matter what I was doing," Brinlee said. "I just kept it high and tight and really focused on holding onto the ball. I think that helped.

"I think we knew we could play like this but we just never came out and did it. We really came out hard. We had a good week of practice and had a good mindset of working hard."

Lake Zurich got off to an early lead when quarterback Peter Rantis hit Jack Lynn for a 10-yard touchdown pass just three minutes into the game. The Bears moved deep into Warren territory quickly thanks to a 45-yard run by Brinlee on the second play of the game.

Brinlee then scored his 83-yard touchdown about three minutes later to put Lake Zurich up 14-0.

A touchdown by Gary Eppinger (1-yard run) cut Warren's deficit to 14-7 with 4:03 left in the second quarter, but from there it was almost all Lake Zurich.

The Bears scored 24-straight points, including an impressive 44-yard field goal by Max Methling that made the halftime score 17-7, to put the game out of reach quickly.

"Man, (Lake Zurich) just played a complete game," Warren coach Dave Mohapp said. "They dominated every phase of it. We didn't play a very competitive game. I thought we'd compete harder than we did and I'm not sure why that is. We just didn't execute and we didn't get the job done."

Warren star running back Greg Kennedy gave it his best shot, all while coming off a bad cold. But Lake Zurich made him fight for every last one of his 113 rushing yards.

"Lake Zurich is a great team and we didn't have our heads in the game," Kennedy said. "They came out here wanting it more than us."