Mistakes cost Warren against New Trier

The effort and tenacity were there.

It's the discipline part of the equation that the Warren football team may need a little fine-tuning on.

"We're not playing well and need more of that (discipline), and that's on me," said Devils coach Mark McNulty after New Trier spoiled the Devils' home opener with a 29-16 nonconference decision in Gurnee on Friday night. "We showed some signs of life, but we're still not playing good football. There's not much lower we can go. We just have to get better."

It ended much better than it started for the Devils, which trailed 29-0 early in the fourth quarter.

And after getting shutout 24-0 by Lyons in the season opener last week, there was a huge roar - as well as a huge sigh of relief - when senior running back Darrius Crump rumbled in from 8 yards out for the team's first points of the season to get the hosts on the board and cut the deficit to 29-8.

The Warren defense stiffened and cut down on penalties and mistakes in holding the Trevians scoreless in the final period.

With 1:13 left, the Devils (0-2, 0-0) marched 83 yards in 4 plays. The drive was capped by a 35-yard touchdown pass from senior signal-caller Kyle Debevec to junior wideout Jalin Tolbert. Debevec then completed the 2-point conversion with a pass to senior wide-out Nicholas Marcinkus for the final score of the game.

Debevec played the second half and did a nice job of rallying the troops, completing 7-of-9 passes for 168 yards and the one score.

Despite the loss, Debevec is confident the team will improve over the final seven games.

"We kept our heads up, but we are going to get better like we did last year when we started 0-2 and finished 7-2," said Debevec. "I think we started the game a little bit ahead of ourselves. We played better, but we normally don't play like we did (in the first half). The second half was big for us and gave us a little bit of confidence and momentum."

After dashing for 117 yards in the opener, Crump was held to just 68 yards on 12 carries as New Trier had its way pretty much all of the first half.

The Trevians (2-0, 0-0) capitalized on three Warren first-half turnovers, and five penalties certainly didn't help matters.

Kickoff return speedster Jalen Powe did his part in helping Warren gain decent field position by returning four kickoffs for 128 yards.

Defensively, the Devils got a sack from senior defensive lineman William Rosales, while Powe deflected a pass and senior linebacker Max Kravitz and junior defensive back Kale Bloomfield each had tackles for losses.

Before the game, Warren held an emotional tribute for student Daniel Wang, who was a junior that lost his battle to brain cancer last spring.

Warren players wore gray jersey's with Wang's initials on them, and both teams collected at each of the 40-yard lines while Warren student Mia McGowan sang a beautiful national anthem at mid field.

Warren will look to rebound and earn its first win when it travels to Lake Forest next Friday for the North Suburban Lake Division opener.