Wheaton North defeats Glenbard East

Glenbard East stunned the overflow Wheaton North homecoming crowd on the third play from scrimmage when quarterback Joe Kotch found wide receiver Mike Fahey on a stop-and-go pattern for an 85-yard touchdown.

Not much else went wrong for the Falcons Friday night in Wheaton in DuPage Valley Conference football action.

Wheaton North responded to the Rams’ early score with 8 unanswered touchdowns to bury Glenbard East 56-12.

There were no shortage of contributors for Wheaton North. Quarterback John Peltz not only orchestrated the Falcons’ spread offense to perfection, but the junior also ran for four scores and passed for another to spearhead the Falcons’ assault.

“We wanted to score and get back at them,” said Peltz, who capped the last of 6 Falcons’ first downs on their opening possession with the first of his four ground scores. “We got in their heads early.”

Marcin Gawlak was an unsung hero for Wheaton North (4-1, 3-0); the Falcons’ place-kicker converted all 8 extra-point attempts, and Glenbard East (1-4, 0-3) never started a first-half drive past its own 20-yard line.

“Field position definitely played a factor,” Glenbard East coach John Walters said.

Jaylen Howze was the standout Wheaton North player on defense during the Falcons’ dominant first half in which the team scored six times to take a 42-6 lead into the break.

The junior safety intercepted Glenbard East on consecutive possessions; the first interception enabled Peltz to score on another keeper, and Howze took the second one to the end zone from 22 yards out.

“Our team needed the ball at that time,” Howze said of his first pick. “An interception is big in any situation, up or down (score-wise). It was overall a good team win.”

“We brought (Howze) up last year as a sophomore,” Wheaton North coach Joe Wardynski said. “You can see his development as a player.”

In addition to the four Peltz scores on the ground, the last of which produced a running clock 22 seconds into the third quarter with his 80-yard burst, Mikey Sammer led all rushers with 118 yards, including a first-quarter 43-yard romp that gave the Falcons a 14-6 lead.

Coleton Hrgich scored for the Falcons during his lone series as quarterback, and Johnny Daniels’ wide receiver screen from Peltz was the Falcons’ only touchdown through the air.

“You go from a 7-6 game to a 28-6 game (during the first quarter) in about a three- or four-minute span,” Walters said. “It’s really tough to come back from that.”