Warriors power way past Storm

Smith

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

STREAMWOOD -- South Elgin produced plenty of yardage and earned its share of compliments Friday night at Millennium Field.

What the Storm couldn't do was score at anywhere near the pace necessary to keep up with a Waubonsie Valley team now on a roll and playoff eligible after its fifth straight victory, 45-19.

"Everywhere we go we're always smaller," Storm coach Dale Schabert said. "But I tell you what, the kids don't quit.

"I had one of the officials come over to me in the fourth quarter and told me, 'Coach, your guys are getting beat up a little bit but your guys aren't quitting.' I told the kids I maybe only heard that three times in my whole career when a referee went out of his way to compliment a team like that."

Waubonsie coaches had similar remarks about the Storm after this Upstate Eight Conference game, as South Elgin fought to keep up despite giving away 40 to 50 pounds a man along its defensive front.

South Elgin (2-6, 1-4) struck first on a 60-yard touchdown pass from Patrick Rae to Shawn Ryan 58 seconds into the game, but David Reisner's extra point kick went wide left.

The Storm was up against it the rest of the night as Waubonsie's Tre Clark rushed for 153 yards on 25 carries and Ken Clay 109 yards on 18 carries. Clark scored touchdowns on two 1-yard runs, a 2-yard run and a 56-yard pass from senior quarterback Tyler Castro.

"Our offensive line and our receivers -- Mark Hilgers, Scott Kuehn, Mark Szott and Malcolm (Buckner) -- as long as they stuck to their block we got it," Clark said. "Our run game stepped up a lot today.

"You've got to hand it to our linemen. They always say they're overworked and underpaid, but they're pretty good."

The Warriors (5-3, 4-1) ran for 260 yards on 52 carries while Castro threw for 188 yards on 11-for-19 passing.

After Ryan's TD, Clark scored from 2 yards out and Mitch Ewold's conversion kick gave the Warriors the lead for good with 4:56 left in the first quarter.

The lead hit 14-6 less than a minute later when Castro found Hilgers for a 27-yard TD after a fumble recovery.

South Elgin's Josh Smith caught a 27-yard TD pass with 3:36 left in the first quarter and went on to a nine-catch, 162-yard performance. However, the Storm never got closer than 14-12.

Ewold's 31-yard field goal padded the lead to 17-12, then a 21-point second quarter turned the contest into a blowout.

"I preach that you play the way you practice and the last five weeks we've been practicing at game speed," Waubonsie coach Paul Murphy said. "The first three weeks we were not practicing at game speed. That's why we were 0-3."

Larkin came back with a 29-yard fourth-quarter TD pass from Rae to Smith. Rae finished the game with 274 yards passing on 15 of 31 attempts.

"They were really tough up front, but give our guys credit -- we didn't give up a sack all night," Schabert said. "It gets to a point where the score is like that and we were still throwing it and having success."