Grant enjoys getting dirty in win over Wauconda
It will take a laundry miracle to get Grant's bright white road jerseys back to normal.
Tide, Clorox, Shout - the Wauconda Mud Bowl might be out of your league.
On Saturday afternoon, the grass football field at Wauconda looked downright destroyed even before the first down between Grant and Wauconda was played.
Never mind the fact that the sophomore game that was to be played beforehand was cancelled in an effort to save the field from even more pounding. And never mind the fact that school officials and parent volunteers spent more than hour that morning doing everything they could think of to dry the field.
It was still a muddy, sloppy mess.
Soon after the opening kickoff, Grant's bright whites turned black. And the Bulldogs spent part of their halftime break scraping their mud-packed cleats against the chain link fence behind the north end zone.
"It was the only way to get all the mud off," Grant quarterback Justin Cokefair laughed. "But I love playing in this. It makes the game a lot more fun."
Not that the Bulldogs weren't having plenty of fun without the mud. It was just a bonus.
Grant (dirty) danced up and down the field to the tune of 389 yards and 6 touchdowns en route to a 40-18 North Suburban Conference Prairie Division dismantling of Wauconda on its mud-filled homecoming.
The victory pulls Grant even at 3-3 overall, not a bad rebound after its 0-3 start. At 3-1 in the division, the Bulldogs are now in second place behind 4-0 Vernon Hills, which will visit Fox Lake in two weeks.
"This is awesome. We just want to keep this going into the playoffs," said Grant running back Leo Minne, who rolled up 110 yards on 19 carries and scored 2 touchdowns. "No more losses."
It became clear quickly that Grant wasn't in any danger of getting its fourth loss.
The Bulldogs were up 25-0 at halftime thanks to rushing touchdowns by Dan Hourihan (5-yards), Cokefair (5 yards, 1 yard) and a nifty halfback option pass from Minne to Ryan Clark that went 59 yards with 57 seconds left in the first half.
Grant recovered the ensuing kickoff and got the ball back at the Wauconda 37-yard line. On the first play of the drive, Minne took to the air again, this time finding his quarterback, Cokefair, sprinting down the sideline. A 23-yard gain helped set up Cokefair's 1-yard touchdown as time in the half expired.
"We practice that (halfback option) a lot," said Minne, who is also listed as a quarterback on the roster. "We like to spread the offense around and we're able to move the ball a lot more."
Two minutes into the third quarter, Minne gave the Bulldogs even more cushion when he capped off a seven-play drive with a 16-yard touchdown that made the score 33-0.
"Leo is multi-dimensional," Grant coach Kurt Rous said. "He's a good player to have. He's got speed, he can throw, he can break tackles. He's a good kid."
Wauconda (2-4, 1-2) finally got on the board with a 4-yard run by Brian Kent with 2:19 left in the third quarter.
About a minute later, Minne snuck in another Grant touchdown - on a 58-yard run - to make the score 40-6. However, the rest of the game belonged to Wauconda.
The home team Bulldogs scored 2 fourth quarter touchdowns against Grant's first-team defense. Kevin Jones (11 carries, 105 yards) sprinted 55 yards for a score and Lucas Schlueter added a 1-yard run with 4:34 remaining to close out the scoring.
"Kevin (Jones) had an outstanding game. And we're hoping to get more of that," Wauconda coach Dave Mills said. "But we're in an uphill battle now at 2-4. Probably the best thing that came out of this day is that we've got a lot more people talking about (artificial) turf."