Wheaton North rolls over Glenbard East
Wheaton North gave up a touchdown Friday night at Glenbard East.
That’s news, considering the Falcons had only allowed 14 points in their first four games this season.
“It’s pretty nice looking in the newspaper, yeah, No. 1 defense in the state,” defensive back Jaylen Howze said after the Falcons’ 57-7 victory over the Rams in Lombard. “Pretty happy about that, but we’re not going to let that distract us from what we want to do. Coach (Joe) Wardynski has us at practice going hard all the time.”
The special teams and offense were impressive also.
“In baseball they talk about a five-tool guy. They’re kind of a five-tool team,” Rams coach John Walters said. “They have a good kicking game, good special teams, good team speed. They have a couple of quarterbacks. Most high school teams struggle to find one, they’ve got two, and when they’re not playing quarterback they’re catching footballs on the outside. They’ve got a special receiver in (Matt Biegalski), they’ve got a great running back in (Patrick Sharp). Their offensive line does a nice job.”
Lake Bachar opened the scoring with a 32-yard field goal, and Sharp followed shortly after with a 5-yard touchdown run. Three plays later Howze returned an interception 29 yards for another touchdown and a 17-0 Falcons lead.
“The interception was pretty big,” Howze said. “It was just good coverage all around, but I do have to thank the linebackers for supplying the pressure and then dropping back into the flat. He had no other choice but to throw it pretty deep and I happened to be right there. Good timing. I had good lead blocking too. To be honest, the D-linemen turned into O-linemen. They had good blocking. That’s how I was able to score, to be honest, otherwise I would’ve been on the sideline cracked a little bit.”
Wheaton North (5-0, 3-0 DuPage Valley Conference), ranked fourth in Class 7A, ended the first quarter with a 10-yard TD pass from Clayton Thorson to Tom Colletti and a 24-0 lead. Next, John Peltz found Biegalski for scoring passes of 62 and 18 yards. A Kaelen Bradford 2-yard TD run and Thorson’s 18-yard TD run gave Wheaton North a 50-0 halftime lead.
Glenbard East (0-5, 0-3) scored in the third quarter on Joe Kotch’s 15-yard touchdown pass to Mike Kjeldsen, ending the Falcons’ bid for their third shutout of the season.
“We don’t talk a whole lot about statistics or the scores,” Wardynski said of losing the shutout. “I was just excited that our second group was able to go out there in the second half and they competed very well.”