North focusing on Larkin's Williams

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Larkin running back Jalen Williams has the full attention of St. Charles North's defense going into tonight's Upstate Eight Conference showdown.

Williams was a one-man wrecking crew last week as he racked up 364 rushing yards and five touchdowns on 38 carries to lead the Royals to a 40-21 non-conference win at Lake Forest Academy.

The 5-foot-7, 160-pound senior has been tough to stop all year. Williams leads the area in rushing by a wide margin with 774 yards on 113 attempts, which is good for an average of 6.8 yards per carry.

"They have decided to put the ball in Jalen's hands a lot," North coach Mark Gould said. "He's one of the best I've seen in a long time as far as being able to stop on a dime and change directions. He's made many defenders look pretty bad, so it's going to be a good challenge stopping him."

As easy as Williams has made things look thus far, Larkin coach Matt Gehrig doesn't expect his team to post mind-boggling offensive numbers tonight in what is shaping up to be a defensive slugfest.

The Royals and North Stars both rank among the top four in the area in terms of points allowed. Both teams are also limiting opponents to fewer than 3.5 yards per rushing attempt.

Adding to the challenge facing sophomore quarterback Kyle Newquist and the Larkin offense is the fact that the North Stars will be trying to make amends after allowing a season high for points and yards in last week's 35-28 loss against Waubonsie Valley.

"I anticipate St. Charles North doing a couple things to neutralize our running game a little bit more because that was our clear strength the last couple weeks," Gehrig said. "On offense they are going to be equally effective at throwing and running, so we're going to have to be good at making our reads and playing aggressively."

Both teams have one UEC loss, so the winner of tonight's game will remain in the thick of the league title race.

Larkin is making a trip to North for the second straight year and hopes for a much different result this time. The Royals faced a running clock during the entire second half last season as the North Stars scored all of their points in the first half of a 41-0 rout.

"Last year when we went there it was not a good game for us," Gehrig said. "They came out and played really well and had a dominating performance."

Gould is far more concerned with last week than last year. North trailed 28-7 going into the fourth quarter against Waubonsie a week ago before rallying with three touchdown passes from junior quarterback Jake Bergren in the closing minutes.

While the display of resiliency was noteworthy, Gould hopes to see a more complete effort tonight as the North Stars try to improve on their 4-2 all-time record against the Royals.

"We know we can play much better than we played last week," Gould said. "On film it looked like we were playing very tentative and trying not to make mistakes. We can't play that way. We have to be aggressive."