Benet takes look in the mirror

Benet's Mike Wuest gains ground as his team watches Friday night. Wuest scored two touchdowns to help lead the Redwings to their first victory of the season.
Danielle Gardner / Staff photographer

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LISLE -- Benet might have entered East Suburban Catholic play without a victory, but the Redwings knew where their deficiencies were and made it a point to correct them.

The adjustments worked to the tune of a 35-0 victory against St. Joseph on Friday night at The Village of Lisle-Benedictine University Sports Complex.

Benet came into the game winless, but the Redwings learned their lessons after losses to Oswego and Montini.

"That is why we scheduled those games was for games like tonight," Benet coach Gary Goforth said. "We knew what our problems were after Week 1."

St. Joseph entered at 2-0, but the Chargers' wins came against Argo and Ridgewood.

"St. Joe's coach (Mark Zavagnin) admitted to me that the Chargers' first two opponents didn't show them much," Goforth said.

Benet's two biggest areas of concern were catching the ball and tackling.

Neither was a problem as the Redwings (1-2, 1-0 ESCC) looked poised and confident on the synthetic surface despite the wet conditions.

The defense set the tone immediately, forcing St. Joseph (2-1, 0-1) into a quick three-and-out.

Benet's offense, which had scored 13 points in its first two games, looked alive with senior running back Mike Wuest busting off runs of 14 and 10 yards on the Redwings' first two plays. Senior quarterback Jimmy Riley capped the drive when he found Marty Flavin for a 51-yard touchdown on a third-and-27 play to give Benet a 7-0 lead.

Riley completed 14 of 20 passes for 214 yards, two touchdowns, one interception and he had seven rushes for 52 yards before giving way to backup Luke Terna in the fourth quarter.

"We came into this game with a great mentality by forgetting about the two games that we lost," Riley said.

Eight separate receivers caught passes as Riley spread the wealth.

Neil Ostrander was Riley's favorite target with five catches for 53 yards.

"The offense appeared to be in sync," Ostrander said. "We came out throwing the ball despite the conditions and we made improvements from last week."

Wuest made it a 14-0 game with an 8-yard scoring run. Riley found Mac Coffey for a 26-yard scoring strike shortly before halftime to make it 21-0 at intermission.

Then the Redwings simply wore down the short-handed Chargers in the second half. St. Joseph dressed 31 players and seven starters played both ways, including three linemen and starting running backs Ron Moore and Tim Kelly.

"We knew about their numbers, but this game was about us and our season," Benet linebacker Ryan Mitchell said. "If we would have lost tonight, it would be really difficult for us to make the playoffs."

Mitchell and the rest of the Benet defense, which debuted a 3-3-5 look this season, smothered the St. Joseph running game and limited the Chargers to 88 yards of total offense and to less than 10 yards in the second half.

Kelly had amassed more than 300 rushing yards in the Chargers' first two wins was held to 49 yards on 13 carries for a St. Joseph's team that was looking for its first ESCC win since the conference was reinstated in 2003.

Benet salted away its first win when Wuest added a 1-yard run in the third quarter for his second touchdown before Terna capped the scoring with a 4-yard keeper early in the fourth quarter.