South Elgin notches impressive road win

VERNON HILLS -- On Friday night, all the talk seemed to revolve around Vernon Hills playmaker DaVaris Daniels and how he would run circles around the South Elgin defense.

The Storm evidently did not get the memo.

South Elgin's defense was overwhelming and its offense opportunistic as the Storm rolled to a 21-6 victory to improve to 2-0 on the year.

"We work so hard with these kids," Storm coach Dale Schabert said. "You have to get the kids to believe what you're doing. These are a bunch of kids that fly around, play good defense and hustle all the time."

Things looked grim for the Storm early on, as it fumbled the opening kickoff and gave the Cougars great field position at the South Elgin 24-yard line. But the defense held firm, setting the tone for the entire evening, forcing Vernon Hills (1-1) to settle for a 37-yard field goal attempt that sailed wide right.

It appeared that South Elgin was going to let a prime scoring opportunity go by the boards when John Menken threw an interception on third-and-goal from the Cougars' 7-yard line, but the intercepting Cougar fumbled the ball back to the Storm almost immediately after he caught it, giving South Elgin a fresh set of downs.

Two plays later, Menken found Sean Kolber for a 3-yard touchdown pass off a well-designed, play-action fake to give the Storm a 7-0 lead with 7:41 left in the first half.

Throughout the first half, the Cougars alternated Daniels and Steve Nelson at quarterback, but the Storm stymied them both. The Cougars racked up 104 yards on the ground in the first half, but were never able to sustain a drive until the waning moments of the half when a pass from Nelson was tipped at the line and caught by Evan Spencer, who sidestepped two South Elgin defenders and galloped into the end zone for a 56-yard touchdown reception. The extra-point attempt failed and the Storm went into the intermission with a 7-6 lead.

Menken only attempted three passes in the first half, but racked up 69 yards on seven rushing attempts, keeping the Cougars defense honest.

"The middle opened a lot and I was able to get free," Menken said. "It really opened up the passing game a lot in the second half. The offensive line picked me up so much. They're the MVPs of this game, no doubt."

After a sloppy start to the second half that saw each team turn the ball over twice, South Elgin struck again on an 83-yard drive that took 5:46 off the clock when Menken found Derek Hurschmann for a 12-yard touchdown pass which gave the Storm a 14-6 lead with just over 10 minutes to play. The drive included two big third-down conversions by Menken, who completed an 18-yard pass to Domico Failla on third-and-8 and later found seldom-seen junior Ken Lowden for a 29-yard completion, also on a third-and-8.

The Storm put the game away on the ensuing Vernon Hills drive when Nelson fumbled the ball in South Elgin territory and Hurschmann scooped it up and took it 67 yards the other way to paydirt.

"My eyes just got big," Hurschmann said. "It happened to take a good bounce and just popped right into my hands and from there it was just off to the races. That really changed the momentum, you could tell."

Daniels was limited to 35 yards passing and 22 yards rushing for the night.

Menken completed 8 of 16 pass attempts for 91 yards with two scores, he was also the Storm's leading rusher with 90 yards on 11 attempts.

For Schabert, this road win sends a message to the rest of the Upstate Eight Conference.

"The first year we played, I think we had four (opposing) homecomings," Schabert said. "That tells you something, when everybody wants to play you on their homecoming, but now I think we'll have some people scrambling to get the first two films and see what we're doing. But that's a nice feeling. I'd rather them looking at us than ignoring us."

South Elgin 21, Vernon Hills 6

South Elgin   0   7   0   14  —   21

Vernon Hills 0   6   0    0   —    6

SE — Kolber 3 pass from Menken (Reisner kick), 7:41

VH — Spencer 56 Pass from Nelson ()kick failed), 2:09

SE — Hurschmann 7 pass from Menken (Reisner kick), 10:07

SE — Hurschmann 67 fumble return (Reisner kick), 6:55

Team statistics          SE             VH

First downs                 11                17

Comp.-att-int.          8-16-2        16-34-1

Passing yards              91                178

Rushing-att-yds.      34-155          29-159

Total yards                246                337

Fumbles-lost              4-3                4-3

Penalties-yards          6-35              4-20

Individual statistics

Rushing:

SE — Menken 11-90, Birchfield 14-39, Hansley 5-17, Randich 4-9.

VH — Turner 10-44, Nelson 6-37, Miller 1-2, Oberwise 2-32, Palmer 2-32.

Passing:

SE — Menken 8-16-1, 91.

VH — Nelson 11-22-1, 143, Daniels 5-12-0, 35.

Receiving:

SE — Kumerow 2-26, Failla 3-21, Lowden 1-29 Hurschmann 1-7, Kolber 1-3.

VH – Spencer 7-100, Kisley 4-43, Daniels 2-19 Bradford 1-6