Lakes navigates a victory on Chicago's south side

Getting to the South Side of Chicago wasn't fun.

The Lakes football team was stuck in stuffy school busses Saturday afternoon that were not equipped with air conditioning. And to make matters worse, the trek down to 81st Street, about 20 minutes past U.S. Cellular Field, lasted more than two hours, thanks to tedious, stop-and-go construction traffic.

But, eventually, and perhaps deservedly, there was some fun to be had for the Eagles.

And it happened on the football field, where it quickly became apparent that the grueling trip was very worthwhile. The Eagles dominated their season opener against host Chicago Perspectives from start to finish and filed away a 40-8 victory at Stagg Stadium.

"The ride down there was really tough," Lakes senior running back James Zell said. "But we just tried to come out of that positive. You can't let little things like that get you down. We knew we just had to forget about that and do what we had to do to get the job done."

Mission accomplished.

With Zell leading the way, the Eagles jumped on Perspectives in the first quarter with two touchdowns. By halftime, the lead was 26-0 and heading into the fourth quarter, Lakes boasted a comfy 40-0 advantage.

Zell scored Lakes' first two touchdowns, on a monster 78-yard run and on a 2-yard run.

"I felt great out there," said Zell, who rolled up 109 yards on 12 carries. He scored 3 touchdowns on the day and also caught 2 passes for 42 yards. "I think the key to my success was the blocking of the line. They did a great job. It was amazing and I'm just happy that everyone on the team had fun out there."

The Eagles couldn't help not to, putting points on the board in all kinds of different ways.

While Nick Tognocchi added another rushing touchdown (11 yards), Zell also caught a 30-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Chris Hoffman (4-for-5, 42 yards).

The special teams got in on the action with two blocked punts that led to a safety by Tyler Menheer and a touchdown by Turner Bradshaw.

To top it all off, senior kicker Mike Beckman booted a 47-yard field goal that wowed the crowd. The Lakes coaching staff was told that the field goal ranks as the second-longest ever at a Chicago Public School stadium.

"To kick a 47-yarder at the high school level is outstanding," Lakes coach Luke Mertens said of Beckman, who set a Lake County record with 13 field goals last season. "Mike is such a weapon for us. We always want to score touchdowns, but when we don't, it's nice to know that we've got a kicker like him."

Defensively, Lakes got 6 tackles from both Brandon Grant and Menheer, as well as 5 tackles and an interception from Alan Gomez.

"Defensively, we were able to really control the tempo and we did a good job of swarming to the football," Mertens said. "Offensively, we did a pretty good job running the football. I feel pretty good, pretty confident of what I saw out there today."