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Geneva puts away Elgin early

Forget that Elgin was missing its top offensive weapon in senior tailback Dennis Moore to an ankle injury.

Forget that Geneva came into the game unbeaten in Upstate Eight action in its first season and a half in the league.

And forget that Elgin’s sophomore quarterback Ryan Sitter was playing only his second varsity game, and sophomore tailback Jaylen Clemons was playing his first.

All anyone needed to know that it wasn’t going to be Elgin’s night at Geneva’s Burgess Field on Friday took place at the 4:05 mark of the first quarter in the Vikings’ 45-14 Upstate Eight River Division blowout over the Maroons.

With Geneva already holding a 10-0 lead, Vikings’ quarterback Matt Williams looked for running back Bobby Hess on a screen play at Geneva’s own 45-yard line.

With three Elgin players in fast pursuit of Williams, the play quickly broke down – until Williams spotted Hess breaking free just past midfield and proceeded to throw him a shovel pass about 10 yards on the dead run. Hess gathered it in, took off down the sideline, got a big block from Ben Rogers, broke two tackles and went 55 yards for a 17-0 Geneva lead.

“Matt is Matt, I mean we had a screen play that blew up on us and Matt did his deal, he’s a wild child and Northern Illinois is going to love this kid,” Wicinski said of his senior quarterback, who is committed to play for the Huskies.

Hess knew he was in the right place at the right time.

“The play broke down because their defense read it, but I knew Matt would keep the play going,” Hess said. “He threw it and then I saw a place to run, and Ben Rogers came in for a great block.”

Williams (9 of 14 passing for 226 yards, three touchdowns) said he saw Hess break open and “just flipped the ball to him and Bobby did all of the work.”

Even before the shovel-pass scoring strike, Geneva (4-0, 2-0) made quick work of Elgin by mounting a 70-yard, seven-play scoring drive to open the game. Williams hit 3-of-4 passes and Parker Woodworth scampered off tackle for a 17-yard TD run during the drive. Three minutes later, Kevin Dunlop kicked a 35-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead.

It all led to Geneva steamrolling to a 38-6 halftime lead, as the Vikings responded quickly to Elgin’s lone first-half tally on a 24-yard touchdown reception by Maroon wideout Gage Teschner early in the second quarter.

Woodworth answered just more than a minute later with his second touchdown on a 12-yard run, then Rogers hauled in a 20-yard touchdown strike from Williams.

Ben Herrera got in the act by scoring the Vikings’ final touchdown of the half pulling in a 7-yard pass from Williams and diving past an Elgin defender into the far left side of the end zone.

Herrera scored Geneva’s final touchdown in the third quarter on a 17-yard blast up the middle, one play after Rogers had pulled down a 54-yard bomb from Williams to finish the game with three receptions for 115 yards.

Elgin (1-3, 0-2) got its final tally on an 11-yard run from Clemons, who turned in a solid effort for the Maroons with 24 carries for 88 yards. Sitter then found Derek Moorman wide open for a two-point conversion pass.

“We were waiting on Dennis (Moore) because he was questionable, and he couldn’t go, but Clemons played well in his first game,” Elgin coach Dave Bierman said. “The same with our quarterback, this was his second game, and he’ll get better.”

Geneva amassed 439 yards of total offense to Elgin’s 241 yards.

“We’re just trying to get better each week, getting everyone firing on all cylinders,” Wicinski said. “The defensive coaches had a good game plan and we have things to work on, but I thought we set our defense good on the edges tonight.

“We finally got people out there (covering the edges of the line), but now we have to hunker down,” Wicinski said. “I thought we were kind of getting driven out of there.”