Grant's 'D,' Staton make a statement

Bud Staton states it's been the case not only this year.

Ever since the rough-and-tough senior was a sophomore playing varsity football, Grant has been a second-half football team.

"We come out a little slow," said Staton, a two-way starting lineman. "But then we seem to get going at halftime. It's a whole new team it seems like. A whole new defense."

The Bulldogs foiled themselves in an attempt to be a first-half team against visiting Lakes on Friday night, as they committed a pair of personal-foul penalties on the Eagles' opening-drive, which ended in a missed field goal.

But Grant played with enough discipline after halftime, capitalized on some Lakes mistakes, got its running game going and indeed looked like a second-half team again en route to a 30-7 win.

Grant improved to 4-0 and 2-0 in the North Suburban Prairie Division with its 13th straight regular-season win, while Lakes dropped to 1-3, 0-2.

"Not a well-played game by us," said Grant coach Kurt Rous, whose team overcame 11 penalties for 115 yards. "If we keep playing like that, we're not going to do well."

Grant was flagged for 7 penalties in the first half and led only 7-0 thanks an 11-yard touchdown run by quarterback Justin Cokefair.

But Gunther Rosentreter broke off a 42-yard TD run on Grant's first possession of the second half. Back-to-back touchdown runs by Cokefair from 6 and 11 yards out, respectively, the second after an Austin Thorsen interception, had the Bulldogs up 27-0 after three quarters.

With fullback/quarterback Israel Rodriguez sidelined with a knee injury that could keep the 2007 all-conference player out the rest of the regular season, Cokefair enjoyed his second three-touchdown game in three games. He rushed for 95 yards, including a 53-yard burst, while Rosentreter had 97 rushing yards on just 6 carries.

Grant, which got a fourth-quarter field goal from Dan Hourihan, has outscored its opponents 78-38 in the second half.

"Our offense stepped up with losing Izzy," said Staton, who was joined on the line by Mike Bessette, Markos Andrews, Mike Zielinski and Travis Stefanowski.

Grant's defensive line with Staton, John King, Jacob Brown, Mike Zielinski and Cody Arff helped limit Lakes to 129 yards of total offense.

"They're maniacs," Rous said. "They do a good job occupying blockers and letting our linebackers run free."

Lakes running back Josh Gaido had 63 rushing yards at halftime, but only eight in the second half.

"They did some nice adjustments shutting him down," Eagles coach Luke Mertens said. "They said the quarterback is going to have to beat us, and our quarterbacks didn't beat them. Our quarterbacks need to make a little bit more plays out there."

Lakes averted a shutout when Jack Schneider, the Eagles' third QB of the night, fired a 13-yard TD pass to Josh Rigali with 1:06 left.