Cardinals crush Eagles
North Central College football coach John Thorne knows the value of having all three facets of his team contributing to wins.
Saturday night in Naperville, Thorne witnessed his offense, defense and special teams all directly aid in the Cardinals' 47-0 home-opening rout over Benedictine.
With the Cardinals (2-0) leading 7-0 after one quarter, North Central defensive back Matthew Wenger intercepted an Andrew Ramus pass and returned the ball 27 yards to the Benedictine 7-yard line. From there sophomore Dominic Sulo scampered 7 yards into the end zone for North Central's sixth touchdown of the year -- all scored by Sulo.
"It feels great actually, but then again I'm just running," Sulo said of his 6-touchdown streak. "Everyone else is making the holes for me."
Nearly six minutes later, the Cardinals defense stepped up and put points on the board by pressuring Ramus in his own end zone, causing the freshman to attempt a pass that officials ruled intentional grounding.
The resulting safety pushed the North Central lead to 16-0.
Leading 26-0 early in the third quarter, the Cardinals special teams blocked its second punt of the game. Junior David Treglown scooped up the bouncing ball and strolled into the end zone for a 32-0 lead.
"We're having a lot of fun with (special teams)," Thorne said. "We've got several older guys that have been on special teams for two and three years now, and they're really starting to get good at that. That's a big part of our game; we want offense, defense, and special teams to each have their part in scoring points and winning games."
The Eagles (1-2), fresh off a 14-0 win over North Park, hoped to hang onto their momentum heading into Naperville. However, Benedictine lacked the offensive firepower to rally with Ramus making just his third collegiate start.
"We're playing with a freshman quarterback; we're trying to develop him. He completed some passes early, but we had a tough time with the protection," Eagles coach John Cooper said. "We had some first downs, but we just couldn't sustain anything offensively."
Despite allowing 47 points, Cooper remained pleased with his defense after the game.
"Our defense, I thought, gave a great effort. (North Central) had some great athletes out there," Cooper said. "They played hard, they made some plays, (but) they were on the field too long.
"If your offense is running on all cylinders and your special teams are running on all cylinders, they're not going to put 47 points on the board."
-- Matthew McClarey
Wheaton College 55, Washington University 14:ŒZach Ullrich threw 3 touchdown passes and Sean Norris threw 1 as the Thunder (2-0) rolled to victory in St. Louis.
Wheaton quarterbacks Ullrich, Norris and Sean Bradley combined for 352 yards passing without an interception. Chris Fossum led all receivers with 5 receptions for 123 yards and a TD.
Tyler Langs added a touchdown on a 38-yard interception return for Wheaton, which led 35-7 at halftime.