West Chicago can't hang with DeKalb

West Chicago first-year coach Ted Monken is trying to build the Wildcats into a big-time football program.

In his first game at Memorial Field, his young Wildcats got to see what big-time looks like up close as DeKalb's University of Illinois-bound running back Dre Brown scored 5 first-half touchdowns and the Barbs (2-0) cruised to a 54-20 victory. Brown ran for 214 yards on 21 first-half carries.

"Great day, when you have a guy like Dre, you are going to give him the ball and he makes us that much better, he would make any team better," said DeKalb coach Matt Weckler.

"He is a Big Ten-caliber athlete, there is no question he is very talented," Monken said. "But we didn't do a great job of doing the things we needed to do to get him stopped before he got started. A guy like that, if you get him going and let him get a head of steam, it's tough to bring him down. If he's in first gear, you have a chance, when he's in third or fourth gear it's tough to get him down."

West Chicago (1-1) trailed 28-0 when they were able to break through and score midway through the second quarter. Senior quarterback Peyton Seidler started slowly, completing only 1 of his first 10 pass attempts but then Seidler hit on five of his next six attempts, including a 5-yard fade to the corner of the end zone that Alex Mitchell pulled down for a touchdown. Seidler ran in the 2-point conversion to make it 28-8.

Seidler and Mitchell would hook up for two more touchdowns, a 13-yard reception and a 1-yard grab late in the game to account for all of the Wildcat scoring. Seidler threw for 254 yards but was also picked off twice by the Barbs' Rudy Lopez.

"They were taking advantage of the mismatches in terms of size," Weckler said. "We had about (5-foot-8) going against 6-3 or whatever and I thought we had good coverage but they made some plays." "Peyton does a nice job," said Monken. "When he takes care of his footwork and takes care of his mechanics and does the things that keep him consistent, he's as good of a high school quarterback as I have ever coached. We were able to put some points up, it was just too little too late but he is getting better every week. We have a long way to go to get where we need to be, we're fighting like heck to get there."

Mikey Bibbs had 4 catches for 72 yards and Jake DeLuca also had 4 catches for 63 yards for the Wildcats.