Lake Park starts fast against Glenbard East

Last week Lake Park fell behind early to Conant 20-0 and never caught up.

The Lancers made sure that didn’t happen Friday night as they jumped out to a 19-0 lead at Glenbard East early in the second quarter and never looked back, winning 45-20 to move to 1-1 on the season.

A 72-yard touchdown run on the game’s second play by Curtwan Evans; a 19-yard TD pass from Zack Gehant to Kevin Teglia that was set up by teammate Anthony Garnello’s interception; and a 42-yard fumble recovery by Ronnie Castaldo for the third score pushed the Lancers into the driver’s seat.

Teglia caught 2 touchdown passes and ran for another equaling his scoring total of last week and said the offense made strides from the opening night 47-28 loss against Conant.

“We have a lot of people returning, a great (offensive) line and we had a great off-season and we work hard every day in practice,” he said. “We stepped it up tonight and some things came together.”

The defense also took a step forward against the Rams (0-2), according to Lake Park coach Chris Roll. The Lancers stifled Glenbard East early on and that was crucial to jumping out to the early lead and keeping it.

“It was an huge improvement over the first week. We had a tough week of practice. When you lose that first game, you take a look at yourself and you need to be honest. They (the defense) came ready to hit,” he said.

Friday’s game was the first the Rams played on their stadium’s new artificial surface. There was a pregame ribbon cutting ceremony before the contest.

Glenbard East’s first score came from an efficient 8-play, 80-yard drive that wrapped up with a Joe Kotch 8-yard pass to Dan Ryan.

Its second score came as a result of a fake punt that put the Rams into Lancers’ territory.

A 27-yard pass from Kotch to Javante Burnett set up Kotch’s 8-yard TD keeper midway through the third quarter.

Kotch finished with 215 yards passing and ran for 99.