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Stevenson trips up Zion-Benton

As Stevenson senior wide receiver Troy Radtke camped under a pass from senior quarterback Matt Micucci on Friday night in Lincolnshire, he must have wondered:

“Where is everybody?”

The nearest Zion-Benton defensive back, it seemed, was somewhere in Buffalo Grove.

Maybe Wheeling.

Radtke was that wide open.

“That sort of thing happens sometimes,” Patriots coach Bill McNamara said after his team’s 31-7 home victory. “That happens when you run as often as we do and teams do anything they can to stop our running game.”

The Micucci-Radtke “gotcha” connection – good for a 33-yard touchdown, at 5:09 of the second quarter – was the Patriots’ second TD in 2:28. Junior running back Chris Peters (17 rushes, 95 yards, 2 TDs) had rushed for a 1-yard TD to cap a 59-yard trip.

“Our running game … it takes a lot of pressure off me,” said Micucci, who, with 5 touchbacks Friday, booted the pressure out of footballs on kickoffs and kicked a 36-yard field goal in the third quarter. “Our line does such a good job, and our running backs are all shifty and fast.”

Pats senior left tackle Jake Hurcombe made life delightful for Peters and senior running backs Mike Ling (8-78, TD) and Kevin Foley (10-46). The 6-foot-2, 275-pounder created running paths that dwarfed his school’s ample hallways.

“You have to give credit to our linemen, all of them,” said the 5-8, 165-pound Peters, who also scored on a 2-yard burst in Friday night’s North Suburban Conference Lake Division opener. “I’m not the reason we scored; our line is the reason.

“Bruisers and runners,” he added. “That’s our team.”

Team Z-B (1-2, 0-1) blanked Stevenson (2-1, 1-0) in the first quarter and led 7-0 after 12 minutes. The visitors got tricky with 4:49 left in the first frame, scoring on junior Matt Cortesi’s 2-yard run on a fake field goal, and played admirably for most of the first half.

Z-B, which lost 45-7 to Stevenson last fall, trailed only 14-7 at the break Friday night.

“That didn’t bother us, when we found ourselves down that early,” said Stevenson senior linebacker Dom Bickus, blessed with a football-sounding surname and a relentless approach on defense.

“Talent,” he added. “We have so much talent.”

Bickus then mentioned the full name, and position, of teammate after teammate as the teammates walked by him.

Z-B’s leading rusher against Stevenson’s swarming, flying defenders was junior running back Alex Pasiewicz (17-44), and sophomore quarterback Javarius Amos-Mays needed 20 pass attempts to throw for 81 yards.

Pats Jon Way and Connor Lewis came down with second-half interceptions.

“We never take Zion-Benton lightly,” said McNamara. “That’s a very well-coached team, every year. They capitalized (on a Stevenson turnover) early on us.

“I’m very happy with the way we responded to Zion’s lead. We had to play hard, and well, for four quarters, and we did that.”