Grant, Niewiedzial deliver hurt
Seven regular-season games left in his final season of high school football, and all Shane Wiker could do was sit in a wheelchair on the sideline wearing his Grant No. 67 jersey and cheering on his teammates at Round Lake.
Oh, how the senior center wanted to be blocking for fullback Steven Niewiedzial and quarterback Leo Minne.
Nope.
In practice on Tuesday, Wiker's season ended when he got rolled.
"I tore my ACL, broke part of my femur, maybe chipped my tibia," said Wiker, who has already had surgery. "I got 30 staples and 2 screws."
A season that was getting worse by the day got better for Grant on Friday night. Behind Niewiedzial's 199 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns on 17 carries, the visiting Bulldogs beat Round Lake 43-6 in a North Suburban Prairie Division opener.
It marked the first win for Grant (1-2), which allowed 41 points against Crystal Lake South in its opener and 49 at Plainfield North last week.
Round Lake was coming off a 42-0 shutout of Sullivan that was the Panthers' first win in three years.
"They had a better record than we did," said Grant coach Kurt Rous, hardly underestimating his opponent. "Anything can happen any Friday night in high school football. When we watched the film, their running backs ran hard. And we hadn't exactly been playing great football."
With no Wiker, Grant started three sophomores in Jared Lalanda, Dan Haeffele and Luis Echeverria, as well as senior Zac Applehans and junior Jake Mraz. Echeverria started for the second week in a row after beginning the season with the sophomore team.
"We have a young offensive line, and they're making a lot of mistakes," said Rous, after his team was flagged for holding regularly against Round Lake and was penalized, in total, 11 times for 88 yards. "But the best thing about them is they're all coming back next year (except for Applehans)."
Wiker's season-ending injury was significant.
"You never want to lose one of your starters," Rous said. "A credit to our guys. They stepped in and did the job. But, yeah, we're going to miss him. We don't have a whole lot of kids anyway."
For Niewiedzial, who was a starting outside linebacker last year, it was his second 100-plus-yard game of the season. He busted off TD runs of 19 and 24 yards in the first quarter in helping Grant build a 21-0 lead. Minne's 35-yard pass on a slant to Jerry Gaylor opened the scoring.
Niewiedzial scored on runs of 28 and 40 yards in the third quarter, with his final score commencing a running clock with 6:43 left. He also ran in a conversion.
"We've had a hard time with our QB giving him the ball sometimes, but we knew he could do it," Rous said. "It was nice to see him have a breakout game."
Minne (14 rushes, 70 yards) also had a TD run for Grant, and Shawn Hansen notched a safety when he tackled Panthers running back Jacoby Griffin in the end zone in the fourth quarter.
Griffin was a bright spot for the Panthers, scoring their lone touchdown late in the game, while also coming up with an interception and a sack on defense.
"We were not ready to play," Round Lake coach John Coursey said. "Being young and inexperienced, maybe we didn't know how to react after we won a game. I thought we had a good week of practice, but we were flat tonight. And they weren't. I give (Grant) all the credit in the world. They out-coached us. They outplayed us."
Grant got interceptions from Matt O'Donnell and Max Bailes.