No luck again for Wheaton North

The game was a hit, a lot of hard hits, as Simeon defeated Wheaton North 14-9 in a fiercely fought nonconference football matchup on Saturday at Gately Stadium in Chicago.

The Wolverines had a 14-0 lead late in the game, but the Falcons nearly caught up with a late rush that included a safety and touchdown.

"We did some things better tonight. We haven't played very well the first two weeks," said Falcons coach Joe Wardynski. "I feel like we played better football tonight. Simeon is a very good team. It's disappointing the 14 points we gave up. We talked about limiting our mistakes.

"If we put our kids in the right position, I think we can make plays. We're young in some spots, and we need to clean up some of those mistakes and give ourselves a chance."

The game was very physical. The action was fast even though it was a low-scoring game.

"Offensively, we looked a little rough out there," Wolverines coach Dante Culbreath. "We made it tough. Our defense played tremendous again and held us together. We had some big plays called back and that's tough, a momentum breaker."

The Falcons (0-3) finally got on the scoreboard with a safety late in the fourth quarter. On their next possession the Falcons pulled off a spectacular play to cut the Wolverines' lead to 14-9.

Falcons quarterback Luke Anthony pitched the ball to running back Steele Graham who fired a 46-yard throw to Adam Terrini near the goal line. Terrini tipped the ball up to J.P. Forcucci, who was standing by in the end zone for the score.

"We needed a big play," Forcucci said. "I saw the ball wasn't thrown to me, but I knew I had to be there just in case the ball was tipped, and sure enough the ball was tipped in the air and I took advantage, secured the ball and put six points on the board."

"We lost but we still got better and still plenty of room for improvement and that's something we'll fix during the week. We keep our heads up and come back next week ready to play."

With the Falcons driving in the closing seconds of the game, Maurice Burton sacked Anthony to shut down the comeback.

"It's a tough loss," Anthony said. "We had them. We just didn't execute in the end."

The Wolverines are 2-1 heading into Chicago Public League play.