Wheaton North reigns at Lake Forest

Mother Nature made her presence felt as the skies opened up on Friday night in Lake Forest to the tune of an hour-plus delay.

In the meantime, Wheaton North was also busy opening up its offense as a long night ended up in favor of the Falcons 21-12 in a nonconference tilt.

"That's a good program (Lake Forest) over there, but we were determined not to start the season 0-2," said Wheaton North coach Joe Wardynski, as his guys evened up their mark at 1-1 with DuKane Conference play beginning next week when they travel to St. Charles North. "It was a battle of possessions tonight, but we had enough stops."

A spirited Lake Forest team jumped to an early 7-0 lead when senior quarterback James Swarthout hooked up with senior running back Jacob Thomas on a screen pass for 61 yards with 9:15 left in the first.

But the Falcons tightened things up and got rolling with 13 unanswered points in the second quarter and a 13-7 halftime lead.

Junior quarterback Nathan Love kicked field goals of 34 and 32 yards. Sandwiched in between was a Love 1- yard plunge - mind you, with one shoe.

Wheaton North then got its special teams involved when junior return man Christian Halstead left everyone in his wake by returning the opening kickoff of the second half 80 yards to the house and a 21-7 lead.

"With all of the adversity going on tonight, that special teams touchdown was huge," noted Wardynski.

Then, the rains came.

When play resumed, Lake Forest managed a Petzer hit a 27-yard third quarter field goal, followed by a safety in the waning seconds of the fourth.

Wheaton North's running game was punishing, with junior speedster Stephen Garner rumbling for 164 yards on 28 carries.

"He did a really nice job," added Wardynski.

And Love ended up completing 8-of-15 passes for 119 yards with his favorite target senior Jake Johnson (2 catches, 68 yards).

Meanwhile, the defense featured a pic by junior linebacker Xander Mueller and the defense sacked Swarthout 6 times.