Lakes routs Senn to advance to first round of Class 5A playoffs
Lakes started the Class 5A football playoffs off right, capturing a 44-0 opening-round victory against No. 13 seed Chicago Senn on Saturday at Winnemac Stadium in Chicago.
Lakes (5-5), the 20th seed, will travel to first-round foe Wauconda (7-2), the No. 4 seed, next week. Wauconda pinned a 20-7 home defeat on the Eagles in Week 3 in both squads’ Northern Lake County Conference opener.
Saturday’s pivotal play took place on the third play from scrimmage. Lakes had a third and 10 from its own 40-yard line when senior quarterback Ethan Gialo was sacked for a 6-yard loss.
However, Senn netted a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the play. Gialo then responded with a 41-yard jaunt to the Senn 10, from which he found a wide-open Jason LaBelle for the first of two scoring passes and a 6-0 Eagles lead.
“We definitely came off a little slow off the bus,” Gialo said after finishing with a combined 177 yards rushing and passing. “I think that (first) TD got us going, brought the energy up and then we just went from there.”
It was from there that the Lakes defense and special teams took advantage of Bulldogs miscues.
A Shane Krause fumble recovery at the Senn 16 set up a three-yard Robbie Siebert touchdown run for 13-0 lead.
Next came a five-yard Nate Velez rushing TD after an errant punt snap by the hosts that made it 20-0 at the end of one quarter.
After his second TD pass to LaBelle, Gialo then added a 20-yard TD run, followed by a 29-yard Cael Cramond field goal that made it 37-0 with 1:57 left before halftime.
The visitors topped off the first-half scoring deluge with an A.J. Perna halfback option pass to Kingston Davis with 52 seconds left to set up a second-half running clock.
The Eagles defense did its part as it held the hosts to only 12 yards of total offense.
As his squad departed the field, Lakes coach Jason Ellerman began to focus on the rematch with Wauconda.
“Wauconda is a good team, but we are playing our best football,” Ellerman said. “We just got to focus on our fundamentals (and) we can't let Lakes beat Lakes.”