Naperville’s North Central utterly dominant in 66-0 romp over Susquehanna to advance to fifth straight title game

They say practice makes perfect so North Central College football had to feel pretty good heading into Saturday afternoon’s NCAA Division III semifinal showdown with visiting Susquehanna University from Pennsylvania.

The unbeaten and top-ranked Cardinals took the field in Naperville off one of their best weeks of practice so they liked their chances of advancing to a fifth straight Stagg Bowl championship game.

Even so, no one could have predicted the utter dominance they displayed while routing the River Hawks (12-2) 66-0. The numbers and the stats are staggering, as the hosts jumped ahead 21-0 after one quarter, led 49-0 at the half and finished the day with 9 touchdowns, 638 yards of offense and a shutout from a defense that has played well all year and has now allowed just 3 points in its last two playoff games.

“I told them last night that we're having our best practices, playing our best football right now,” Cardinals coach Brad Spencer said after improving his career record to 43-1 in three seasons at the Naperville school. “That's unique. It's hard to do at the end of basically playing for 20 weeks now.”

It’s also unique for a national semifinal contest to be so one-sided. In fact, the Cardinals’ winning margin matches the largest D3 semifinal margin ever, equaling a 66-point victory by Mount Union. Speaking of Mount Union, that perennial power won 45-37 over Johns Hopkins earlier Saturday and will now take on the Cardinals in the championship January 5 in Houston.

River Hawks coach Tom Perkovich had very high praise for North Central after his team’s best-ever 12-win season came to a staggering close.

“We came in thinking they were the best blocking team, but hats off to them. Their kids play football the right way, Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. And we know which side we were on today,” he said.

“But hats off to North Central. That's the best team I've ever gone against by a pretty large margin in 21 years of doing this. So whoever they're playing next week's got their hands full.”

In a dominating effort, Cardinals quarterback Luke Lehnen misfired on his first pass of the day and then went 16-for-16 the rest of the day for 275 yards and four touchdowns. Hinsdale Central graduate Thomas Skokna had a team-high 7 catches including a second-quarter score, and Jacob Paradee had a pair of touchdown catches for an offense that recorded 32 first downs on the day.

The Cardinals controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and senior All-America right guard Sam Pryor was a big reason for the team’s gaudy numbers on offense. With the blocking up front opening holes and giving Lehnen plenty of time in the pocket, the River Hawks’ defense just had no answers on Saturday.

“It was just Pryor giving them protection, and Luke just getting out of the pocket and making a play,” Skokna explained of his team’s success. “Obviously, when you've got to run around for five to 10 seconds, somebody's gonna get open at that point, especially with all the athletes we have.”

With North Central rushing for 352 yards and five scores, it was a well-balanced attack, but it was led by Lehnen, whose 4 TD passes give him 158 for his career and equals the best-ever total set by Mount Union’s Braxton Plunk. After closing out a perfect career on the Cardinals’ home field Saturday — the team has won 37 straight games at home dating back to 2018 — Lehnen can set the TD passing record in the Stagg Bowl and also look to avenge the program’s one-point loss in last year’s national championship game.

“Pretty awesome. Not everybody can say that, but it just means a lot to us, and then also to our alumni,” Lehnen said when asked how it felt to be perfect for four seasons at home. “It's nice having an emphatic win for our last time for our seniors here.”