advertisement

Glenbrook South stands tall in triumph over Prospect

Prospect’s football team found itself with a tall order on Saturday night at Glenbrook South.

Literally.

Making his first start for the Titans’ varsity, 6-foot-6 junior quarterback Fitz Stadler threw 4 touchdown passes as Glenbrook South topped the Knights 41-14 on a humid but cool night in Glenview.

“Usually my quarterbacks are about 5-foot-7,” said Titans veteran coach Mike Noll. “We don’t care about height, but we’ll take 6-6. It doesn’t hurt. He can see the field really well.”

Knights fans got to see their team score first when Brian Maigler caught a 4-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Matt Drew with 18.3 seconds left in the first quarter for a 7-0 lead.

But starting with Stadler’s 46-yard TD pass to Brett Laurie (11:46 left in the second quarter), the Titans scored 41 unanswered points in the nonconference season opener.

Stadler went on to throw 39 and 16-yard TD passes to Cody Carroll, and a 7-yard scoring strike to Steven Schroeder.

“They came out in a new defense for which we hadn’t prepared,” Noll said. “They were in a 3-3 stack and it took us time to adjust.”

Carroll, a 6-foot-3 senior wide receiver, didn’t need much time to adjust to the Titans’ rookie signal caller. Carroll was Stadler’s favorite target, making 6 catches for 151 yards.

“We (Stadler and Carroll) played together on a Glenview Bombers baseball team in the summer so we’ve gotten some chemistry together not only in football but off the field, too,” Carroll said.

The Knights trailed 21-7 at intermission, but after a three-and-out to start the second half, Stadler engineered a 54-yard TD drive. The highlight was a 43-yard pickup when he lofted a perfect strike to Carroll, who was tackled at the 7-yard line.

“He (Carroll) is getting better and better on his routes and stems,” Noll said. “He’s a talented kid. “It’s amazing how much better Stadler has gotten in the last five days. Our line was good and he’s throwing to one of the best receivers (Carroll) around, in my opinion.”

Prospect scored its final touchdown with 20.9 seconds left when backup QB Greg Suarez raced 8 yards to the end zone. Prior to the score, Michael Tomasette carried three times for 24 yards.

“I was happy to see even at the end of the game, the kids did not stop playing,” said Prospect coach Mike Sebestyen. “Greg (Suarez) did a nice job at the end.”

Drew threw for 119 yards, including 2 completions for 44 yards to junior Mike O’Malley.

“Drew played well,” Sebestyen said. “We could not run the football and when you become one-dimensional, it is very hard to move the football.

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a 15-year -old (Drew). He did OK but we didn’t really help him. I thought Mike O’Malley really worked well at wide receiver and Eric Garmoe did a nice job at running back when we didn’t have things going there.

“This is not a bad football team. But they (Glenbrook South) are not a bad team either. They started rolling and rolling fast. Our biggest struggle is that when the ebbs and flows have not been with us, we aren’t doing a good a job responding. We’ve got to find a way as a whole coaching staff to improve with. The good thing we’ve got time to adjust things and learn from this.”

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.