Jacobs shuts out Johnsburg
The Jacobs Golden Eagles’ football team has a case of Déjà vu.
For the second consecutive week-in-a-row, the Eagles waited till the second quarter to explode. They even lost 2 of 4 fumbles again. But instead of running back Caz Zyks making it a track meet, fullback Kyle Wright, who didn’t feel like repeating his 10-carry 56-yard output against Joliet West, had other things in mind.
In a switch of “What Jacobs back can rack up the yards,” Wright won the battle, rushing 9 times for 145 yards and a touchdown to help lead Jacobs to a shutout of Johnsburg, 28-0, in a Fox Valley Conference crossover in Johnsburg Friday night.
But as the fumbles piled up again and 11 penalties committed for 95 yards, Eagels coach Bill Mitz doesn’t like what he sees.
“It’s a little frustrating right now. We’re not anywhere where our capabilities are yet,” Mitz said. “We’ve got to get better defense and get more 3-and-outs.”
Jacobs (2-0) had a tough time stopping Johnsburg’s drives from the onset. One Skyhawk drive reached the Jacobs’ 38, another to the Eagle 21 on a long 60-yard pass and another to the 18. Luckily for Jacobs, it picked off quarterback Jon Torgersen twice, including one by Greg Sidor, who made his second pick in as many weeks.
If Jacobs didn’t allow just 41 yards rushing on 26 carries, Johnsburg may have achieved more than 9 first downs.
But as Torgersen threw for 173 yards (9-for-28), Mitz wanted to see if his team could better protect quarterback Jason Judson. Mitz called 27 passing plays for Judson and his guys answered the bell as Judson converted on 17 passes for 194 yards. It was a change-up from the run game the Eagles are used to.
“Last week, we didn’t protect real well,” Mitz said. “We wanted to see if we could protect our quarterback tonight. The kids did a good job of that.”
Judson threw a 1-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to Evan Bishop to make it 28-0, but Jacobs did most of its damage in the second quarter, where Wright went berserk.
Wright had 4 runs total in the first half, runs that included a 46-yard outburst, a 24-yard scamper and a 55-yard touchdown run that made it 21-0 late in the second quarter.
“I knew they were going to focusing on (Zyks) after the game so I knew I was going to have a couple a big holes,” Wright said.
Zyks’ 217-yard output last week had Johnsburg favoring Zyks over Wright. And that proved costly.
“They’ve got some big boys up front and they pounded us a little bit,” Johnsburg coach Barry Creviston said. “They got a nice complementary back there.”
But even Wright wasn’t too happy about the sloppy play again.
“It’s kind of a sloppy win,” said Wright, “We got 2 wins but we didn’t think we’d win them like this. We got to get some things together, that’s for sure.”
Zyks didn’t have a shabby game though. He rushed 10 times for 99 yards. Jacobs won the total yards battle 493-204 and gobbled up a muffed punt as well.