Naperville North strong-arms Glenbard East
Too big, too strong and for too long.
That’s what the Glenbard East defense was up against Friday night at Naperville North. The Huskies’ big offensive line — not to mention a slew of speedy running backs — just kept going at the Rams and eventually wore down the smaller defenders.
Three first-half rushing touchdowns were followed by four more in the second half as the hosts pulled even at 3-3 on the year with a 48-13 defeat of the winless Rams in DuPage Valley Conference action in Naperville.
“Their offensive line is pretty good,” Glenbard East coach John Walters said of the Huskies. “They’re big, physical and they obviously work at their craft. We did some nice things defensively in the first half, but we wore down on the defensive line.”
The Huskies scored on their first drive of the night on a 59-yard TD run by Sharad Crosby, who finished the night with 149 yards on 13 carries, including a 30-yard rush to the end zone in the third quarter. Desean Brown also had a pair of TDs, and he totaled 97 yards as Naperville North piled up 482 yards on the ground.
“We know we can run the ball,” said Desean Brown, scored on runs of 2 and 3 yards but set up his second TD with a 46-yard scamper. “We had a lot of guys come up with big plays tonight.”
Brown’s first score was set up by a Danny Schertz interception of a pass by Rams quarterback Joe Kotch, and it gave the Huskies a 14-0 lead after one quarter. A 2-yard run by Chris Junior with 2:25 left in the second quarter gave the Huskies a 20-0 lead at the half.
The second half was more of the same as Crosby and Desean Brown each picked up their second touchdowns and Justin Williams and quarterback Johnny Brown also picked up rushing TDs in the second half. Johnny Brown finished the night with 80 yards on the ground and also went 7 of 13 through the air for another 62 yards as Naperville North amassed 559 yards of offense.
“We want to play a rock ‘em, sock ‘em football game,” Huskies coach Sean Drendel said. “Our defensive line is really good and our offensive line is really good, so we prefer to mix it up and kind of get in a street fight.”
The Rams got on the board in the third quarter on a 17-yard pass from Kotch to Dan Ryan, then struck again when senior Vic Patrick Harris took a kickoff back 92 yards in the fourth quarter to make it 48-13 with 7:11 left on the clock.