Deerfield takes care of Maine West

Central Suburban North play opened under the lights Friday night as Deerfield hosted Maine West (1-4, 0-1) in the battle of the Warriors.

On Deerfield's Homecoming night, it defeated visiting Maine West 35-7.

Deerfield's offense nearly played a perfect game with only 1 turnover.

On the opening drive, Deerfield jumped to an early start after senior tailback Jeffrey Johnson's 38-yard rush to the 9. This resulted in a pass play with junior quarterback Bradley Holway connecting with junior wideout Marc Pagano on a 9-yard touchdown.

Pagano had a magnificent, personal-best game with four receptions for 122 yards. Every catch was a touchdown, including two sweep option passes from senior tailback Scott Ingram.

"I just had the motivation to score," Pagano said. "We played a great game that gave me easy catches. (Coach Steve Winiecki) told us to play our kind of ball. We'll execute everything if we play hard every snap.

"This is 10 times better because it's homecoming."

Along with Deerfield's (3-2, 1-0) passing arsenal, it rushed for 244 rushing yards. The Deerfield ground charge was led by seniors Johnson (2 carries, 41 yards), tailback Joseph Mosser (10 carries, 82 yards), juniors fullback Jeremy Kritt (13 carries, 75 yards) and wideout Tyler Vajdic (touchdown).

Deerfield tallied four more first-half scores after Pagano's first touchdown.

"Our goal going in to this week was coming out with a win in the opening game of conference," Winiecki said. "We played Deerfield football this week. We got away from it the past couple of weeks. We mixed up a lot of stuff and got four TD passes."

"We have to get healthier. I knew coming in that Maine West was going to come out and compete. It makes things a lot easier when your kids are playing like this."

It became very difficult for Maine West to piece a drive together and it didn't score until six minutes were left in the game on senior wide receiver Mike Cardamone's 33-yard run.

"We worked all week and we just didn't execute," said Maine West coach Chris Hare. "Deerfield is a fast team, and we didn't do well. We hurt ourselves with too many penalties and a couple dropped pitches. It all starts with the exchange off the snap."