Wauconda ‘D’ does the job

Keith Blomberg kept sniffing the end zone ... and breakfast.

He tasted neither.

“I want my breakfast!” Blomberg yelled when he came to the sideline after picking off his second pass of the night, only to get dragged down on the sideline.

At least the Wauconda safety/outside linebacker didn’t get toasted during the Bulldogs’ 22-6 win over host Wauconda in the teams’ North Suburban Prairie Division game Friday night.

“It was kind of frustrating,” said a smiling Blomberg, who sprinted with the football and got tackled each time after his 2 interceptions and fumble recovery. “I had the ball and I was running, running, and then I would just get tackled out of nowhere.”

When Dave Mills relinquished his duties as Wauconda’s defensive coordinator to become the team’s head coach a couple of years ago, he had one request for his replacement, Shawn Rudolph.

“When Shawn took over DC, I told him the only thing he had to keep that I did was if the defense scores, you have to buy them breakfast,” Mills said.

Rudolph hasn’t had to treat his defense yet, but the Bulldogs are “getting closer,” Mills noted. More importantly Friday, they played with the aggressiveness and tenacity that helps wins games.

North Chicago mustered just 65 rushing yards and 65 passing yards. Blomberg accounted for all three of the Bulldogs’ take-aways.

“That and Woodstock (36-14 season-opening win),” defensive tackle Shawn Sundquist said, “I would say are our two best defensive games.”

The win kept the Bulldogs’ playoff hopes alive. Wauconda (2-4, 1-3) hosts Lakes on Thursday, before finishing with road games at Stevenson and Vernon Hills.

“Three more (wins) to go,” said Sundquist, who was a force again up front.

Wauconda’s defense also featured Erik Fuller, Damien Nelson, David Starkey, Erik Eischen, Eric Dragon, Jack Botheroyd, Chris Bednarski, Jake Sherman, Geoffrey Ganzman and Nick Magiera. The Bulldogs held North Chicago’s shifty, elusive quarterback Arnold Shead to just 42 rushing yards (13 attempts) and limited him to 5-of-21-passing for 65 yards.

“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to (do),” Sundquist said of trying to contain Shead, who’s just a sophomore. “He stays in the pocket literally for a second and then he’s gone.”

“He’s really fast,” Blomberg added. “But we were able to contain him.”

Wauconda was playing its first game since losing star wide receiver Jake Ziolkowski to a season-ending wrist injury in the fourth quarter of its game at Antioch the previous week. With his favorite target gone, Bulldogs quarterback Branden Rowe completed just 5 of 14 passes for 71 yards.

“The other kids just got to grow into their roles,” Mills said. “We’ll get used to it.”

Rowe’s first completion accounted for the game’s first score, and it was pretty. Rowe was under pressure from North Chicago when he scrambled, stepped up in the pocket and flipped the ball underhanded just before being hit. The ball landed softly into the hands of AJ Malisheski in the end zone.

Rowe’s improvised toss covered 11 yards.

“You know the last time I saw a throw like that?” Mills asked. “Jim McMahon. He was running, and all of a sudden, someone was about to hit him and he just did a left-handed flip. I was like, ‘Athletes are athletes.’ You got to tip your hat to Branden. He made some big plays tonight.”

Rowe threw another touchdown pass before the half ended, firing a strike on the run to tight end Blake Wisniewski in the end zone from 18 yards out.

Wauconda went up by 3 touchdowns on its first series of the second half, when the junior Starkey capped a 7-play drive with a 2-yard run — his first TD as a Bulldog.

Starkey, a 6-foot, 220-pounder fullback/defensive end, just became eligible by the IHSA last week after transferring from a military school in Wisconsin.

“He’s solid,” Mills said with a grin. “He’s going to help us.”