Second quarter splurge by Grayslake hurts Johnsburg

By Todd Rohde~CORRESPONDENT

The Johnsburg football team put forth another worthy effort this week, but unfortunately came up on the short end of attaining their first victory of the season. That’s because the host Knights proved to be a little too explosive on both sides of the ball, which wound up getting the best of the Skyhawks in the end.

By the time that it was all said and done, it was the Knights that got their way in posting a convincing 41-7 Fox Valley Conference Fox Division victory over the Skyhawks Sept. 14 in Grayslake. The loss dropped the Skyhawks, who next travels to Grayslake Central Sept. 22nd, to 0-4 overall and to 0-2 in league play as Grayslake got their first win of the season at 1-3.

“I thought that we played better tonight than we have in our first couple of games especially on defense,” Skyhawk head coach Mike Maloney said. “Our program knows that we are developing character through these struggles and it will eventually pay off for our young men. I was proud of how our team both started and finished strong.”

Coming into the contest, it looked as if the two teams would match up good against one another and give each other a fight. But the Knights came out strong right from the get go to back the Skyhawks into an early hole that they would struggled to dig themselves out of the rest of the game.

It was the Knights that got on the board first, as they jumped out to a 7-0 lead at the 7:19 mark of the first quarter. That’s when they found their way into the end zone on a seven-yard run from quarterback AJ Fish.

“Fish is a special player, as he beat us with his legs this week,” Maloney said. “His ability to scramble and move around in the pocket gave us problems.”

Not to be outdone, the Skyhawks answered right back with a score of their own to knot things up at 7-7 in the closing minutes of the first quarter. Their score came on a four-yard run by running back Jake Hauck.

Little did the Skyhawks know at the time that would be their last score of the contest or that the Knights would go on to score 34 unanswered points over the next three quarters combined. The one big thing that hurt the Skyhawks was the fact that Grayslake used a no-huddle offense, which made it difficult for Johnsburg to set up their defense or switch in players.

The Knights would go onto score 21 of those points in the second quarter alone to overtake a 28-7 advantage at the half. They scored early and often in the quarter, as they reached for touchdowns on runs of five, one and 20 yards.

Johnsburg would never be able to steal the momentum back from the Knights in the second half, as tacked on another touchdown in each of the third and fourth quarters. Both came from big offensive plays, as Fish first ran for a 38-yard touchdown and then passed for another 29-yard score to complete the scoring.

The usually strong running attack of the Skyhawks was limited to just 82 yards on the ground on the night. Leading the way for Johnsburg was Christian Nugent with 42 yards on 16 runs. Skyhawk quarterback Nick Brengman completed 10 of his 23 passes for 93 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions, as he spread his passes around to six different receivers on the night.

The Knights finished the game with a hefty 539 yards of total offense on the night including 267 of it coming on the ground and another 272 of it coming from their passing attack. Fish proved to be a one-man wrecking crew for the Knights, as he racked up 212 yards rushing on 19 carries to go along with going 19-23 on his pass attempts for 272 yards with

 


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