Battle for Grayslake's drawing plenty of attention

Game faces have been tightly secured at Grayslake Central and Grayslake North all week.

After all, the sister schools will engage in their annual cross-town rivalry game on Friday and that's always serious business. Add into the mix that both teams are still in the hunt for a playoff berth and the intensity quotient has practically surged off the charts.

But the coaches at Grayslake Central did manage to make room for a good chuckle earlier this week during practice. They just couldn't help themselves.

Seems that the coaches and players involved in this rivalry game aren't the only ones who are a bit on edge. So are the fans.

When Grayslake Central held one of its practices in the town's Central Park, an auxiliary site that is located across the street from the high school, head coach Nick Goshe was approached by a concerned fan.

The concerned fan was a coach for one of the town's youth football programs, which also practices in Central Park at the same time.

"He told me that one of the other coaches on his team has a son that plays at Grayslake North," Goshe said. "He was like, 'If you guys need to practice anything special for the game this weekend, don't do it now because he (the father of the Grayslake North kid) might see it and tell his son.

"We appreciated that, but we also got a good laugh out of it. The conspiracy theorists are everywhere, I guess. But at the same time, that's what makes a game like this fun. It gets everyone in the community interested and excited. It just shows you that the rivalry is definitely alive and well."

Goshe said the "warnings" from observant supporters didn't stop there.

As usual, he had one of his team managers videotaping the practice.

Later on, Goshe was approached by another youth football coach who wanted to alert him that "someone" was taping his practice.

Pretty in pink:

With its playoff hopes hanging in the balance, 3-4 Libertyville will be seeing red as it fights to stay alive tonight in a North Suburban Lake Division tilt against visiting Stevenson.

But the Wildcats, and all of the fans in the stands for that matter, will also be seeing plenty of pink.

In an effort to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the entire team will be wearing pink game jerseys. After the game, the jerseys will be on sale for $75 each and proceeds will benefit the "Cats for the Cure" school fundraiser.

School officials are encouraging all fans to dress in pink for the game and "Cats for the Cure" T-shirts will be on sale for $10 during the game.

To purchase a pink game jersey, contact head football coach Randy Kuceyeski at (847) 327-7068.

Slip 'n slide:

Don't count Libertyville out just yet.

If the Wildcats can win their remaining two games, they'll qualify easily for the playoffs on points and avoid a distinction that is unheard of for a program that is a usual North Suburban Conference perennial power and a frequent league champion.

That, of course, would be back-to-back years without a playoff berth.

Libertyville missed the playoffs last year with a 4-5 record and would miss again this year with one more loss.

The Wildcats have missed in back-to-back years only one other time in school history since earning their first playoff appearance in 1985.

From 1990 to 1992, Libertyville missed the playoffs three years in a row. Since then, the Wildcats have qualified in 14 of the last 17 years, including a stretch of 10 straight appearances from 1997 to 2006. In 2004, Libertyville won the Class 7A state championship.

"We don't like what's happening. We don't like anything about it," Libertyville coach Randy Kuceyeski said. "But a lot of times at the high school level, things can go in cycles and right now we're not as consistent as some of the other very good programs in our division. Enrollment-wise, Stevenson and Warren are always going to be there. But then you've also got teams like Lake Zurich and Lake Forest that have gotten really good in the last few years.

"I have no other explanation for (the Wildcats' two-year slide) other than that. It's not for a lack of effort, I'll tell you that. We've got coaches and players who work as hard as anyone else in the state."

In fact, Kuceyeski says that this year's team has exceeded his expectations in the work ethic and attitude department.

"I feel so bad that we haven't been able to get this group of kids a few more wins because I'll tell you that this group has been so great to work with," Kuceyeski said. "Even though we've struggled at times this year, this has been one of my most enjoyable years of coaching. We've got a great group of kids and parents and we could never complain about the effort we're getting."

Among others, Kuceyeski pointed to the outstanding play of quarterback AJ Schurr and wide receiver Jeremy Birck, who are in the process of rewriting the school's record books for passing offense.

Schurr has already passed for 1,745 yards and 18 touchdowns. Birck has been on the receiving end of 611 of those yards and 13 of the touchdowns.

Getting defensive:

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in offensive statistics and overlook the play of a defense.

But last week, there were a few defenders in the area who simply couldn't go unnoticed. They forced their way into the limelight with their amazing play.

Lake Zurich linebacker JJ Raffelson rolled up a school-record 5 sacks against Warren.

Ditto for Grant's Quinton Quarles, who also had 5 sacks. And they came against undefeated Vernon Hills, the first-place team in the North Suburban Prairie Division, no less.

Quarles didn't stop there, though. He finished with a school-record 20 tackles, 6 of which went for a loss.

"He had the game of his life," Grant coach Kurt Rous said of Quarles. "It's something we knew he had in him. We've seen it in practice and it was good to see him just go off like that in a game. He was un-blockable and he made so many big plays."

Meanwhile, the Carmel defense has been turning in its fair share of big plays all season.

The stingiest defense in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, Carmel has given up only 78 points this season, or about 11 points per game.

Head coach Andy Bitto says linebackers, Luke Venegoni, Tyler Lees, Kevin Cox and LaRon Biere have combined for 16 tackles for loss and 10 sacks and are the leading tacklers on the team.

Lees has a team-best 76 tackles and Venegoni has 73.

"Our defense has been one of the nicest surprises of our season," said Bitto, whose Corsairs are 7-0 and one victory away from winning the East Suburban Catholic Conference title outright. "I knew we had a good defense heading into the season, but I didn't know it would have this kind of shutdown power.

"We've been able to shut down some great players. We did that for most of the game against Joliet Catholic. We've been able to get a lot of three-and-outs. We haven't given up a lot of big plays. It's been an awesome effort and it really starts with that group of linebackers."

Round and round RBs:

It's been one change after another in the Lakes backfield this season.

For this week's game against Wauconda, the Eagles will be starting their fifth different running back.

No. 1 starter James Zell went down with a Week 3 knee injury and re-injured his knee last week against Antioch in his first game back.

His replacement, sophomore Direll Clark, had a 100-plus rushing game against North Chicago in Week 4, but then hurt his ankle against Zion-Benton the following week and has been out ever since.

Head coach Luke Mertens resorted to using wide receivers such as Mike Pfeiffer in the backfield and it wound up working well for the 5-2 Eagles. Pfeiffer rushed for 114 yards and a touchdown against Round Lake in Week 6.

But Pfeiffer will be academically ineligible this week for the Wauconda game so Mertens is making yet another change.

"We'll be starting Nick Tognocchi at running back. He's another wide receiver," Mertens said. "We're trying to teach him as we go this week, but he's a good player and hopefully, he'll help us."