Can CL South end Cary-Grove's reign?

Opening the season with a loss at Crystal Lake Central was a foreign feeling to the Cary-Grove football program, which had lost just one regular-season game in the previous six seasons combined.

So when the Trojans fell to 0-2 with a 10-3 defeat at the hands of state-ranked Lake Zurich, the feeling was more foreign than a French film festival sans subtitles.

However, the Trojans learned something about themselves in that loss to Lake Zurich. No, this was not the team that had rolled to the Class 6A state title in 2009, not with new players at 19 positions, but they were still a solid football team in their own right. And they were getting better.

“We looked like Cary-Grove football out there, Trojans coach Bruce Kay said this week of the Lake Zurich game. “Kids were flying to the ball, and the offense was running the ball extremely well. I think we came off that game feeling like we had shown substantial improvement from Week 1. We really felt after that Lake Zurich game that we were back to Cary-Grove type of football.

“We stayed pretty confident, said Cary-Grove senior defensive back Danny Sarillo, one of the few returning starters from the title team. “We felt like we had the potential to make a run. All we had to do was practice and get those kids with inexperience some more playing time and we'd be back on the winning streak and continue doing what we do.

Thus, the Cary-Grove players and staff went back to work honing, shaping, adjusting personnel getting faster on defense and offense.

The turnaround took full effect in Week 3 with a 48-6 win over Woodstock. A 42-7 win against Woodstock North evened the record at 2-2. It seemed sophomore ballhandlers Ryan Mahoney and Patrick O'Malley and junior quarterback Corey Laktas were gaining confidence by the play.

In Week 5, the Trojans hung 35 first-half points on an improved Jacobs team in an eventual 49-21 road victory. A 28-6 win against Huntley marked the Trojans' 40th straight victory in a Fox Valley Conference or Valley Division game. The Trojans were officially rolling once again.

Then came the record breaker.

Last Friday, Cary-Grove eclipsed McHenry's record of 40 straight wins in Fox Valley Conference games when the Trojans beat host McHenry, 23-20, in overtime.

The historic victory lifted Cary-Grove to 5-2 overall and 3-0 in the Valley Division. It also set the stage for a winner-take-all game at rival Crystal Lake South tonight at 7:15 p.m. The Trojans enter the matchup ranked No. 8 in Class 6A; The Gators are ranked No. 6 in Class 7A.

CL South (7-0, 3-0) is chasing history in its own right. The Gators have not won a conference or division title in the FVC since 1993, when they split the title with McHenry and Cary-Grove. They have finished second in league play every year since 2003, the last six years behind first-place Cary-Grove.

“It hasn't been from a lack of effort on our part, but we just haven't been able to climb over the top, CL South coach Chuck Ahsmann said. “Honestly, it's amazing how two teams have dominated like that. McHenry went 40 wins in a row and now Cary's gone 41. It's unbelievable that in football in this area that anyone could win that many conference games in a row. It's a tribute to both of their programs, their coaching staffs and their kids.

Though the Gators respect what Cary-Grove has achieved, they hope to put an end to their District 155 rival's lengthy reign, fortified by mammoth bookend tackles Jake Bernstein (Vanderbilt) and Fahn Cooper (Bowling Green), third-year starting quarterback Drew Ormseth, hard-running senior Bolek Mikulec and a defense that limits opponents to 10.3 points per game.

The Gators defeated the Trojans in state quarterfinal meetings in 2008 and 2005, but they have not been able to knock off Cary-Grove in a regular-season game since 2001, when they prevailed 29-19.

“We haven't had a lot of luck beating them in the regular season, so to go out on top as seniors with the conference would be a great feeling, Mikulec said. “It's been since 1993. That's been our goal all season. Hopefully, we can finish it.

CL South already has 2 signature victories under its belt. In Week 2, the Gators held off a 2-point conversion in the final minute to beat Bartlett 10-9. Bartlett has since gone on to beat South Elgin (6-1) and enters tonight's game against Neuqua Valley with a 5-2 record and a chance to win the competitive Valley Division of the Upstate Eight Conference.

In Week 4, the Gators defeated Prairie Ridge, which was then and is now ranked among the top 10 teams in Class 6A. Was it a boon to CL South's defense to have played Prairie Ridge before playing Cary-Grove since the Wolves operate the same triple option as the Trojans?

“It's good that we played those guys, but it was also four games ago, Ahsmann said. “It would have been nice if we could have played Prairie Ridge last week. Cary is so good at (the option). You tend the first time you play them to sit back and watch and try to find the football instead of being aggressive. I think once you've played them it's easier to be aggressive because you've seen it. But it's hard to turn that on in a game.

“When you watch them on film against teams that are very good on defense, they seem to be able to move the football because you just don't see teams run the option like they do. It's a tribute to Bruce Kay and how he coaches his kids.

The question for the Trojans is speed. Namely, is the Cary-Grove defense fast enough to offset CL South's distinct size advantage at the line of scrimmage?

“They'd better be or we're going to have a long night, Kay said. “If those big guys get a hold of us it's curtains. The only chance we have is to continue to play with the speed that we have. But you've got to contain Ormseth. When he gets jitterbugging around out there anything can happen. The defensive backs can only stay with those receivers so long. So we're going to have to put pressure on and contain, and sometimes the two don't always go together.

“And we really have to execute on offense. We've been very good this year as far as our offensive discipline. So we have to play disciplined football and we need to keep the ball. The longer we have the ball, the less time Ormseth and that bunch have to score.