Prairie Ridge uses size to beat Glenbard South

Prairie Ridge brought size and strength down from Crystal Lake for Friday’s football season opener at Glenbard South. The Raiders countered with speedy and shifty.

Size and strength won out.

Prairie Ridge rumbled to a 55-12 victory in Glen Ellyn in a nonconference game.

“Prairie Ridge is a good ball team. We knew what they were going to be about. They’ve got a good chance to go really far in 6A,” Raiders coach Jeremy Cordell said. “We knew coming in that we would have our hands full, but we shot ourselves in the foot a lot. We could have done things a lot better, and we’re going to do things better and we’re going to keep improving.”

Glenbard South (0-1) moved the ball well on the opening drive before stalling at the Wolves’ 20-yard line. Five plays later Wolves quarterback Nick Nissen found tight end Nick Margiotta for a 41-yard pass play down the middle of the field.

The big play was just the first on a night of big plays.

Nissen finished with 2 rushing touchdowns and 2 passing touchdowns, the other a 72-yarder to the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Margiotta on the same play call.

Running back Jordan Getzelman, a 6-2, 195-pound junior, added scoring runs of 34 and 45 yards, and Connor Greenwald and Kerry Kohlbacher also ran for touchdowns for Prairie Ridge, which led 28-6 at halftime.

“It was a nice start for us,” Wolves coach Chris Schremp said. “We were able to put up some points with our offense. A good overall effort. I think our offense was clicking at times. The defense obviously looked good.”

The Raiders broke up the shutout in the second quarter when quarterback Tyler Padera found running back Wesley Sanders for an 80-yard touchdown pass. Sanders added a 70-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

“They’ve got a couple of really good playmakers that made a couple of big plays. That was really our plan for our defense was to stop their two playmakers there,” Schremp said.

Padera finished with 236 yards on 14-of-23 passing.

“This is not an end-all, be-all,” Cordell said. “This is about the journey, not the destination. We’re going to continue to get better and we’re going to be a different team than we are. We’ve got skill and we’ve got guys who can move the ball a little bit. And our defense is better than we showed tonight. They’re a good offense.”