WW South roars past Wheaton North, into playoffs
Wheaton Warrenville South might have had a tough start to its regular season, but it sure did enjoy a strong finish.
The Tigers defeated cross-town rival Wheaton North 27-13 Friday night at Red Grange Field. With their fifth consecutive victory and sixth of the season, they secured a playoff spot and earned a share of a third consecutive DuPage Valley Conference football championship with the Falcons.
"It's a great confidence booster; 1-3 was rough," Tigers linebacker Dan Roadman said, "but we believed we could win the DVC all along and it's just going to push us, give us some momentum going into the postseason."
"It's disappointing to lose," said Falcons coach Joe Wardynski, whose team has lost to WW South 10 consecutive years, "but it's more disappointing because I don't feel like we played our best football tonight."
After senior quarterback Thaddeus Armstrong was ruled out of the game Tuesday when he was diagnosed with a broken rib suffered in last week's game against Glenbard East, the Tigers (6-3, 6-1) put sophomore Ryan Graham at quarterback and kept the game plan simple: hand the ball to running back Dan Vitale.
Vitale carried 36 times for 149 yards and scored the game's first two touchdowns.
"Oh, yeah. It doesn't get any better than that," Vitale said. "... It's awesome to touch the ball that many times."
"It was very effective," Wardynski said. "They did a very nice job of running the football tonight. We geared up for the running game and they still were able to move the ball on us."
Wheaton North (7-2, 6-1) cut the deficit to 13-7 with 2:08 to play in the second quarter on Patrick Sharp's 29-yard touchdown run, then got the ball again with 59 seconds left looking for more. But Roadman stepped in front of a pass into the flat and returned it 34 yards for a touchdown, making the score 20-7 at halftime.
"It's funny because the play before I was getting yelled at because they scored and I messed up that exact same play," Roadman said. "... I listened to coach and they threw it right to me. I almost tripped, and I ran as fast as I could."
Meanwhile, Graham was gaining confidence. He ran for 75 yards himself, and he completed a 6-yard TD pass to Tyler Cook for a 27-6 fourth-quarter lead.
"Ryan stepped in, did a great job of just controlling the offense," Tigers coach Ron Muhitch said. "Danny Vitale, Northwestern's got a good one there. He's got a lot of heart, a lot of talent. I was smart enough just to hand the ball off to him."
John Peltz's 21-yard scoring pass to Micah Penn cut the Tigers' lead to 27-13, but the Falcons couldn't get any closer.
"They earned it," Wardynski said. "They outplayed us, it felt like in all phases of the game. Special teams were big tonight. They made plays in the kicking game. The first half they had us backed up. We couldn't get the field turned. We needed to pick up some first downs and at least get it out of our end.
"I thought our defense played all right. I told them, it's disappointing to lose and you had a chance to win the conference there, but we start fresh tomorrow and we find out who we get Round 1. They've got to put this behind them quickly and move on."