East turns up the 'D'

An impressive defensive effort proved to be the difference for Lincoln-Way East as it rolled to a 29-0 SouthWest Suburban Conference crossover victory at Homewood-Flossmoor on Friday.

The Griffins (3-0) limited the Vikings (1-2) to negative-12 yards on 28 rushing attempts and only allowed 11 yards on 6 completions for a total of negative-1 yard for the night.

"We've gotten off to a tough start on defense and that's not characteristic of what we've done in the past," Griffins coach Rob Zvonar said. "We were getting questioned and the guys started taking that personally.

"We had a great week of practice and coach (David) Woodburn came up with a real solid plan. I'm real proud of how the kids went out and executed it and played hard and physically. It was a great effort to hold a talented offensive group like that."

Trailing 9-0 at the break, H-F threatened to close the gap early in the second half after Aaron Phillips returned a punt to the Griffin 18.

But defensive back Ezra Thompson deflected away a likely touchdown pass to Mike Buchanan and the Vikings eventually turned the ball over on downs.

East had its own troubles offensively during much of the contest and only had 105 yards of offense while punting 7 times as it held onto its 9-point lead late in the third quarter.

But the Griffins put together three straight scoring drives of 62 yards or more during the late going to finally break things open.

Spencer Stanek scored on a 1-yard sneak to make it 15-0 with 1:15 left in the third, Kevin Starke scored on a 2-yard run with 7:54 left and Pete Merenowicz added a 3-yard run with 1:50 remaining.

Offensively, Justin Wittl rushed for 82 yards on 14 carries and caught 3 passes for 61 yards to lead the Griffins, who collected 226 yards on the ground and had 85 more through the air.

Starke put the Griffins ahead for good with 5:52 remaining in the opening period when he scored on a 36-yard run.

Eventually, the Griffins increased their lead to 9-0 after recording a safety -- this following an errant snap on a punt with 6:06 left in the second quarter.