Wauconda attacks like lightning
The Wauconda football team has seen more delays lately than Chicago drivers through summer construction.
Last week, the Bulldogs endured a 90-minute lightning delay before eventually taking care of Woodstock North.
On Saturday, it was a 30-minute lightning delay that interrupted a Week 2 nonconference game against visiting Chicago Orr.
And yet, the game still finished in a reasonable amount of time. The Bulldogs kept the game clock moving thanks to all the extra points they put on the board.
Wauconda enacted the running clock in the third quarter by going up by 40 points and wound up finishing with a gaudy 47-0 shutout of Orr, which lost in this game last year by just 6 points.
The victory moves the Bulldogs to 2-0 on the season.
“This year so far has been real bad with the weather,” said Wauconda running back Joey Lovelle, who scored 3 touchdowns and ran for 104 yards on 10 carries. “But we knew we had to stay focused the whole time and that’s what we did. We came out and we got a big win.”
Wauconda was up 33-0 by halftime, doing most of its damage on the ground. Lovelle had all of his yards by halftime and so did Alex Payne, who opened the scoring with a 3-yard run and finished with 81 yards on 10 carries.
“The line was giving me great blocks and the receivers were doing a great job on the outside. All our runs on the outside were the receivers blocking well,” Lovelle said. “I give all the credit to my teammates. It was real fun.”
In the second half, Max Buechner and George Lauber got the bulk of the carries for Wauconda and finished with 56 and 29 yards respectively. They scored Wauconda’s 2 second-half touchdowns.
“We were moving guys around,” Wauconda coach Dave Mills said of his running back rotation. “It’s going to be a long season and you’re trying different kinds of combinations. This was a good game for us to play with those combinations (and experiment).”
The Bulldogs also showed some balance with a few big passing plays. Sophomore quarterback Kevin Malisheski completed 4 of 7 passes for 71 yards, including a 62-yard lobbed touchdown pass to Alex Schwickrath.
Both Malisheski and Schwickrath (2 catches for 73 yards) got dinged up a little bit and did not return after halftime. But Mills reported that both could have played had they been needed.
“It’s one of those games where you can be like, ‘It’s OK, sit out. Let’s get ready for next week,’” Mills said.
While Wauconda’s offense was lighting up the scoreboard, the defense rarely gave Orr (0-2) any daylight to work with. Orr managed just 10 yards of offense and 1 first down for the game.
The Bulldogs also recovered 3 Orr fumbles and Imsa Bowman intercepted a pass by Orr quarterback Kalin Rucker.
“Our defense played fast,” Mills said. “At one point in the second quarter, (Orr) had minus-8 yards of offense. Last year, it was a touchdown game for us with Orr. It’s a building process.”