Barrington comes up big against Wheeling

It's official. The Barrington juggernaut has launched.

Now, can the Broncos keep it in orbit?

They'll find out next week when they host Schaumburg in a Mid-Suburban West opener, but first things first. Barrington moved to 4-0 Friday night with an impressive 49-0 MSL divisional crossover win at home against Wheeling (2-2).

The Broncos got dominant performances in every phase of the game. The offense, powered by quarterback Johnny Davidson, receiver Scotty Miller, running back Dumaso Mkwananzi and an offensive line that welcomed back two starters, piled up 331 top speed-paced total yards.

The defense, fueled by Miller, Grant Elliott, Sam Keeler, Kyle Meckert, Zach Rizzio, who had a pick, Eric Shealy and Jake Coon, limited Wheeling to 196 yards and few scoring opportunities while generating great field position for the offense all night.

Hello, Mid-Suburban West, and watch out. Coach Joe Sanchez has an experienced, aggressive bunch.

"They're hungry," said the long-time coach.

And they're not only playing like it, they're also improving.

"This was our best week in practice," said Miller, who hauled in a perfect 40-yard TD toss from Davidson and ran a kick back 97 yards to open the second half for another. He opened the scoring with a 12-yard reception on the back line of the end zone from a scrambling Davidson.

"He's working really hard, week in, week out," Davidson said of his sparkplug wide-out. "We have a lot of other great offensive players around here."

Like Mkwananzi, who bulled his way to 63 yards and a second-half 3-yard TD run. And Mitch Pfeiffer, who atoned for a fumble with 3 catches for 57 yards, many of those being yards after catch.

And then there was the offensive line that propelled everything. "The offensive line did a great job of keeping me protected and keeping me comfortable," said Davidson.

"Johnny had all day. That made it easy for me," said Miller.

"We're starting to get guys back," from injury, that is, on the offensive line, said Sanchez, who welcomed back starters Connor Leighton and Brett Morrison, or roughly 520 pounds of starting power.

The defense did the rest and Sanchez credited coaches Mike Staudt, Bill Helzer, Brady Smith and Steve Galovich for that.

Wheeling was unable to unleash its own speedy weapons. Isaac Branch rushed for 63 yards and Amani Dennis set up the chance for a score with a 45-yard bomb to Tyler Urban, but penalties and the inability to budge Barrington's rock-solid defensive front bottled up the Wildcats.

"We were really never in the game," said Wheeling coach Brent Pearlman. "This was really disappointing."