Naperville North 49, Oswego East 0
Last week Oswego East's option offense was lethal. Friday night it was not.
Of course the Naperville North defense had a lot to do with that. The Huskies stuffed the Wolves' ground attack, picked off a pass and even recovered a muffed punt. The stellar defensive effort -- coupled with another strong effort by the Jordan Tassio-led offense, powered the Huskies to a 49-0 win over the visiting Wolves (1-1) Friday night at Naperville North.
Oswego East's first possession stalled when a third-down pitch to Justin Lawrence resulted in a 6-yard loss after free safety Dave Hess stormed in and nailed the ball carrier just as he took the toss.
That pretty much explained how things would go for the visitors all night as the Wolves managed just 2 first downs in each half and finished the day with 79 yards of total offense.
"The first time we ran the option they made us pitch and we lost 6 yards," said Oswego East coach Mark Green, whose team piled up close to 500 yards in an easy win last week. "That kind of set the tone tonight."
Huskies defensive coordinator Sean Drendel admitted his team was worried about facing the option, but stellar play up front and from middle linebacker Dave Salutric calmed his worries early on.
"We were pretty worried about their option," Drendel said. "We always talk about the option as being the great equalizer. But we really got after their dive. Our ends and tackles played great, and Dave Salutric must have had four or five tackles for loss in the first half alone."
If the Wolves weren't stymied by a big defensive line led by 280-pound Vince Mazzone, then the strong linebacking corps of Salutric, Bryan Bailin and Andre Crawford was there to stop any long drives from developing.
"Coach Drendel called great defensive plays and everyone just did their job," Salutric said. "It was by far one of the funnest games. To have senior night and to get a shutout, it was a great night."
Not to be outdone by the defense, the Huskies (2-0) scored first on a 50-yard touchdown pass from Tassio to Nick Mlady, then broke the game open with 4 TDs in the second quarter. Tassio threw a pair of touchdowns in the game and also added a 2-yard scoring run in the second quarter. Tom Costantino had both rushing and receiving TDs in the big second quarter, while Mlady added a rushing TD in the second half to give him 5 scores in two weeks.
"It was a spread-out performance by our offense," said Costantino, who caught 3 passes for 59 yards. "But the defense kept giving us the ball after three-and-outs or turnovers. Every time I looked up we had the ball on the (Wolves') 30-yard line or the 20-yard line. We had great position all night."