Win puts wind back in Carmel’s sails
For a few seconds Friday night, Carmel Catholic junior quarterback Nick Grandolfo couldn’t breathe.
It felt like a few months.
“Got the wind knocked out of me,” Grandolfo said, recalling the first-half hit he took at the end of a keeper against visiting Marian Catholic.
What he and the Corsairs got: a win, after opening the football season with two losses.
Breathe easy, boys.
Carmel, led by its suffocating run defense, routed Marian’s Spartans 34-10 in an East Suburban Catholic Conference opener in pleasantly chilly Mundelein. The Corsairs (1-2, 1-0) limited the visitors to 36 total yards in the first half and scored 25 unanswered points from the 4:55 mark of the second quarter to 8:49 of the fourth quarter.
Corsairs senior running back/defensive back Sean Brennan returned an interception 30 yards for a touchdown to cap the 25-0 stretch.
Carmel held only a 12-3 advantage at the break, following a half of football that was bereft of any kind of flow.
“We executed,” Grandolfo said of the difference between the game’s first 24 minutes and its last 24 minutes. “We came out fast … faster in the second half. We made some key blocks, and our coaches called different plays, switched things up a little.
“Heart also played a big part,” he added. “We played with a lot of heart after our 0-2 start.”
Carmel got things going with a 2-0 lead Friday night after MC (0-3, 0-1) botched a punt snap and the ball rolled all the way to the back of an end zone. Senior running back Josh Walinski (11 carries, 60 yards) rushed for a 22-yard TD on the ensuing possession.
MC used an interception to set up its only points of the first half, Chris Taborn’s 23-yard field goal at 9:25 of the second quarter. Carmel senior Steven O’Block answered with a 24-yard field goal nearly four minutes later.
Carmel senior linebacker Connor Lynde punctuated the end of the first half with a sack as time expired. It resulted in an 11-yard loss.
The second half started sloppily, with each squad fumbling on its first possession. Grandolfo (117 yards rushing, 2 TDs) ran for a 37-yard gain on the first play after MC’s turnover and put the hosts up 18-3 via a 1-yard TD burst.
Carmel swelled the lead to 21-3 shortly thereafter, thanks to O’Block’s 45-yard field goal. The kick bonked off the crossbar and trickled over for the trey.
“Our defense played great and we did a good job executing our option,” said Corsairs coach Andy Bitto, whose club also beat MC by 24 points (44-20) last fall. “But we’re still trying to find ourselves.
“When you win a game by 24 points, and you still need to work on some things … That’s not all bad.”
Brennan rushed 10 times for 70 yards for Carmel, and senior tight end Max Johnson finished with 2 receptions for 30 yards.