Glenbard North dominates Benet for second straight win
Final score: Glenbard North 49, Benet 7.
Records: Glenbard North remains perfect at 2-0 entering DuKane Conference play. Benet fell to 1-1.
Player of the game: Panthers running back Angelo Gatses scored twice in the first half on a 36-yard reception and 35-yard run. He gained 149 yards while running the ball 14 times. With his team firmly in the lead, he sat the entire second half.
Other statistical leaders: Panthers quarterback Logan Kramer completed nine of 11 passes to six different receivers for 135 yards, threw for four touchdowns and ran for two scores himself. Redwings quarterback Alex Mitchell had 103 yards on 4-of-18 passing along with a touchdown pass on a screen. Running back Zachary Ihde took the ball 12 times for 42 yards.
Turning point: Glenbard North’s Zach Hvorcik blocked a Cristiano Diomede punt deep in Benet territory late in the first quarter. Kramer promptly threw his second touchdown pass of the game from 28 yards out to Owen Miller.
First-half highlights: Kramer threw for three touchdowns in the first quarter, each to a different receiver. Benet got on the board early in the second quarter when Mitchell’s first completion was a screen pass that John Ericson took down field for an 85-yard touchdown. Glenbard North’s response was Gatses and Kramer rounding out the scoring with touchdown runs of 35 and 17 yards, respectively.
Second-half highlights: Faced with a large deficit to begin the half, the Redwings advanced the ball to the Panthers’ 35-yard line before turning it over on downs. Marco Rafael led the subsequent drive on the ground before Kramer ended it with a 30-yard touchdown pass to Pierre Portis. Rafael’s 32-yard run on the next Panthers drive set up first-and-goal, and Kramer ran it in from the 1 on fourth down to start the running clock. The Panthers capped the night’s scoring with a safety late in the fourth quarter after downing a punt at the Redwings’ 1.
X-factor: The Panthers’ defense almost completely held Mitchell in check. Subtracting his screen touchdown pass for the Redwings’ only score, Mitchell completed only two of his other 13 first-half pass attempts for 23 yards.
Quotes: “They’re really focused,” said first-year Glenbard North coach Justin Kerwin of his team. “For the most part, they’re very focused. We had a couple things we got to clean up tonight with our focus, but otherwise, they did a great job with that.”
“We have to come out with energy every single time,” first-year Benet coach James White said. “You can’t walk into a game. I thought we kind of dipped our toe in the water early on, and you can’t do that when you face good teams because they’re going to be energetic. They’re going to execute. They’re going to walk the ball down the field.”