Round Lake falls short in opener

Round Lake football coach John Coursey was happy with the effort that his Panthers showed but disappointed with the result, as host Westosha Central shut out Round Lake 29-0 in a nonconference season opener on Friday night.

"I thought we played hard," Coursey said "We had two fumbles that really hurt us and it took away a lot of the momentum from us."

Westosha Central senior quarterback Austin Damaschke led the Falcons single-wing offense by rushing for 164 yards on 23 carries and scored 2 touchdowns. He also completed 3 passes on 11 attempts for 78 yards and 1 touchdown.

His first touchdown came on an 11-yard keeper with 1:29 left in the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Damaschke pitched the ball to running back Sean Flahive for a 2-yard sweep around the right end.

In the third, Damaschke threw a 33-yard TD pass to Tom Neave. In the fourth, Damaschke was at it again with a 24-yard keeper. Brain Kretschmer ran in the conversion.

Running back Jorge Venegas led the Panthers' offense, as he rushed for 84 yards.

"We worked really hard this week," Venegas said. "We just need to step it up. We have to learn how to finish and close and not make the mistakes that we did tonight."

"We need to work better as a team, set our goals and hold our blocks better," Round Lake running back Jacoby Griffin said. "We also have to play better on defense and gang-tackle more."

Westosha Central coach Scott Mirkes was happy with the single-wing offense.

"The kids like playing it," Mirkes said. "We go from double wing to single wing, and we had some answers tonight. Round Lake's defense came to play. They were popping really good and got after us pretty good to start the game."