Redhawks conservative in win over Glenbard East
Central heads into postseason healthy, on a roll
You almost felt like an impatient commuter, checking your watch while waiting for a late-arriving train.
Across Friday night you noticed the empty bleachers on the visitor’s side of Memorial Stadium, listened to the chatter about the big DuPage Valley Conference showdown over in Wheaton and watched Naperville Central suddenly play conservative football.
In a season of living dangerously, the Redhawks have been about offensive fireworks, jarring momentum shifts and the bursting of fourth-quarter floodgates. But in the regular-season finale, Central pieced together two efficient drives early and then let its defense take over, cruising to a 17-0 victory over Glenbard East and into the playoffs.
Afterward linebacker Josh Jelesky admitted the “whole atmosphere was a little down.” But the Redhawks (6-3, 5-2 DVC) are now eager to perform on a bigger stage, to show the type of team they truly are.
Right or wrong, they’re confident they can cause havoc in the postseason. And so when coach Mike Stine ended his postgame address - “Now we’re ready to make a run in the playoffs!” - his players huddled, raised their red helmets toward the black sky and let out a huge roar.
The ending stood in stark contrast to what could have been a disastrous beginning. On Central’s first offensive play, Harrison Daniels was drilled on a quarterback keeper, a helmet slamming into his hip.
This was a potential worst-case scenario flashing before their eyes, losing the quarterback. Still, the senior leader got up and took Central on a seven-play, 58-yard touchdown drive, capping it with a three-yard run.
But this game would not look like the previous eight.
Central marched on a similar 65-yard drive in the second quarter, showing off its relatively new running back combination. Mike Caulfield, who missed five games with an ankle injury, burst right and crossed back across the field for a 28-yard gain. Nick Kukuc followed with a 13-yard run and moments later Daniels found tight end John Holm for a 3-yard touchdown.
“We finally got everyone back,” linebacker Matt Jones said. “This is the team we thought we should’ve been at the beginning of the season.”
That’s the sense you get around the Central program. Let the computers run the numbers and generate a seed - it’s just an abstraction of a team that finally feels at full strength.
Caulfield and Kukuc combined for 129 rushing yards, draining the clock. Both caught passes out of the backfield or when split wide, and created different looks for the opposing defense. With that, Central kept Daniels in the pocket, and he only threw four passes in the second half and was pulled in the middle of the fourth quarter.
Central could afford to go conservative, considering how dominant its defense was on Friday night, limiting the Rams (1-8, 0-7) to 147 total yards and forcing two turnovers.
Jones and Jelesky harassed Glenbard East’s 5-foot-8-inch quarterback Jack Merrithey. Free safety Andrew Zelinski ripped one interception early, and strong safety Dan Erwin grabbed another late in the second quarter to set up Mark Giuliani’s 24-yard field just before halftime.
“(Defensive coordinator Andy Nussbaum) stressed how, you know, no matter what our offense did, we wanted the game to be on our backs,” Jones said.
Exchanging punt after punt in a scoreless second half, that’s exactly what happened. On defense and special teams, the Redhawks found a level of consistency. There would be no major blown assignments or late avalanche of points, the way West Chicago came on two weeks ago. Or the crazy kick returns that kept Glenbard North in the game last week.
Stine described the final traces of the offense as vanilla football. For one night, it was a defense mechanism. And now the major question looming is: Can Central blend all three phases of the game together for 48 minutes?
Contact Patrick Mooney at pmooney@scn1.com or 630-416-5107.
