Willowbrook savors a Berry big win
Leading up to Friday's West Suburban Gold game at Proviso East, Willowbrook coach Nick Hildreth issued a challenge to his seniors - to finish games.
None took it to heart more than Josh Berry, who had the kind of night you don't soon forget.
The senior tallied 100 rushing yards with 3 rushing touchdowns, 65 receiving yards, an interception and 215 punting yards to help Willowbrook get a 35-14 victory, its first of the season.
"It motivated me a lot," Berry said. "He called me out multiple times. I was one of the guys in there 5:30 in the morning, every morning before school last year. He challenged me, he said, 'You put the work in this morning, you're finally going to make plays.' "
On the ground, Berry took his carries in place of junior Josan Murphy, who was in and out of the game due to injuries. Also coming into the game and making a difference was junior QB Billy Degnan.
Degnan helped the Warriors (1-5,1-1) take the lead after they'd trailed 8-7 with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Hakeem Wallace to make it 13-8 after a missed extra point.
After Berry added his second touchdown of the night and the Warriors went into halftime up 20-8, the Pirates were able to make a dent in the lead.
Linebacker Jeremiah Kemp latched onto a tipped pass and took his interception down field for a 65-yard touchdown.
The Pirates (1-5, 0-2) couldn't muster another offensive drive though, mainly due to a number of mental miscues and the 75 penalty yards it accumulated throughout the game.
"It was about as undisciplined display I've seen any team I've coached," said Proviso East head coach Dave Odum. "So it's just frustrating."
The Warriors were able to add 2 touchdowns and a 2-point conversion in the fourth quarter, doing a great job managing the clock along the way.
"There's five, six, seven plays in a game you don't know what they are or when they're going to happen but those are the plays we made," Hildreth said. "I thought we did a better job of doing that and over came some mistakes early on… We kind of pushed through to finish four quarters which is what we haven't been doing all year."
Offensively, Kameron James and Marcus Givens had a nice night for the Pirates. James threw for 151 yards and a TD while Givens had 102 receiving yards and a TD.