Jacobs gets it going against St. Charles East
Jacobs was still looking for its first points of the football season as it started the second quarter of its second game Friday night against visiting St. Charles East in Algonquin.
But once the Golden Eagles finally got on the scoreboard the points started to pile up in a hurry. They erupted for 3 touchdowns in a little more than two minutes of the second quarter and had another outburst of 3 touchdowns in a seven-minute stretch of the second half.
It all led to a 49-20 nonconference victory for Jacobs in a penalty-plagued game where Josh Walker rushed for 172 yards and 3 touchdowns and sophomore quarterback Chris Katrenick threw for 168 yards.
"Once we got that rhythm, I thought we were doing great," Walker said as Jacobs rushed for 378 of its 546 yards of total offense. "If we do that every week we can score on anybody."
Walker sandwiched touchdown runs of 14 and 76 yards around Katrenick's 19-yard touchdown pass to Nick Gierlak to give Jacobs (1-1) a 21-6 lead 7:23 before halftime. Walker also scored on a 22-yard run 2:24 after intermission to make it 28-14.
"We were coming off a tough one last week where we didn't play really well," Jacobs coach Bill Mitz said of a 37-0 loss to Barrington. "We started to roll. Josh had some big runs and Chris made some good throws."
It didn't matter that Mitz gave Walker a rest for the final 17 minutes as linemen Tony Braglia, Jimmy Wormsley, Tim Laubenstein, Carson Shoemaker and Jeff Sidor made sure the Golden Eagles kept moving the ball.
Mat Barnes had a 1-yard touchdown run set up by Casey Dennison's 18-yard interception return. Sean Barnes had a 6-yard touchdown run and backup quarterback Brenden Heiss set the final score on a 45-yard run with 8:39 to play.
"Everyone did a good job of stepping up and we played with a lot of confidence," Dennison said. "Everything was clicking on both sides of the ball."
And the defense came through after St. Charles East (0-2) got within 21-14 on the second touchdown run by Ramon Lopez (32 carries, 158 yards) from 9 yards with 6:02 left in the half. A drive on its next possession to the Jacobs' 6 was stopped 2 yards short of the end zone on fourth-and-goal.
"That goal-line stand at the end of the half was huge for us," Mitz said.
"That was a big stop," Dennison said. "At halftime we made some good adjustments and we carried them out the rest of the game."
The Saints struggled to adjust to the sudden loss of running back Cameron Canales to a broken collarbone in the third quarter. They were also hurt by 3 turnovers after committing four miscues last week.
"The turnovers killed us but I give a lot of credit to Jacobs because they have some really nice athletes," said Saints coach Bryce Farquhar. "Their running back (Walker) is explosive and he's one of the best we're going to run into all year.
"The focus of ours was really controlling (Walker) and I thought we did well in the first half. We were right there and going into halftime we could have easily been tied."