Glenbard South wins big
Glenbard South was expected to have a powerful offense this season. On Saturday night the Raiders lived up to expectations.
The Raiders opened the season by putting up 518 yards of offense in a 39-21 nonconference victory against Addison Trail in Glen Ellyn. The game was postponed from Friday night due to thunderstorms.
Senior running back Zach Smith rolled up 130 yards rushing and 118 yards receiving on his way to 5 touchdowns.
“It’s just a start,” Smith said. “I believe that we’re capable of doing this every night. I mean we have a fast offense. Not just me. Clark (Gary), Alex (Jeske). We got Jake Duffy, Jimmy Ebbole, Connor Willis. Tight ends, receivers, all those games. Our perimeter blocking was outstanding. That really gave us a big lift tonight.”
“They were all that they said they were going to be,” Addison Trail coach Paul Parpet said. “I’m going to give them a lot of credit. That’s a pretty good football team.”
The Raiders took control of the game from the start, concluding the opening drive with Smith’s 4-yard run, then following that up with an 81-yard pass from Jeske, the senior quarterback, to Smith down the middle of the field.
“That was all coach, the offensive coordinator, coach Brian Wojtun,” Smith said. “He saw that in that Cover 2 (defense) they were too split apart. He said bump outside. He said, honestly, you rip through this first linebacker, you’re wide open. Honestly, I didn’t even have to rip through him. I was wide open down the seam, and Alex threw a perfect ball.”
The Blazers pulled to within 13-8 on quarterback Mike Rybarczyk’s 18-yard TD run to close the first quarter. But every time the Blazers scored, the Raiders answered to regain momentum, this time getting a Smith 6-yard touchdown run with 5:27 left in the half.
“That’s firepower,” Parpet said.
Smith closed the first half with a 1-yard touchdown run to put the Raiders up 27-8, then added a 9-yard run in the third quarter.
“My first couple of carries around the corner, I don’t think I was touched,” Smith said, giving credit to the Raiders’ offensive line. “Maybe I got touched at the 1-yard line coming from the 10, but to be honest I was clean going in.”
“We definitely have the ability to score some points,” Raiders coach Jeremy Cordell added. “We just need to stay within ourselves and keep our focus. We made some mistakes tonight. Definitely you could tell it was a Game 1 on both sides of the ball. But our kids played hard, and for the most part offensively we executed really well.”
Junior Jake Straza added a fourth-quarter touchdown run from 3 yards out for the Raiders (1-0).
Senior Jim Wislek scored a pair of touchdowns for Addison Trail (0-1).
“We knew going into the season that we would have some growing pains early,” Parpet said. “We’re young. We can’t hang our heads. We’ve got to come back next week ready to improve and correct the things we need to correct so that we can move forward.”
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