St. Charles North heats it up against Bartlett
Note to future St. Charles North opponents: avoid man coverage against wide receiver Jayson Reckards.
Bartlett tried that approach on a steamy Saturday afternoon at Millennium Field only to be burned by Reckards for three long touchdowns on sideline fades that lifted St. Charles North to a 35-13 nonconference victory.
The 6-foot, 160-pound senior caught 6 passes for 144 yards from quarterback Zach Mettetal, highlighted by scoring strikes of 44, 20 and 36 yards.
Reckards' 44-yarder gave the North Stars a 10-7 second-quarter lead, his 20-yarder created a 17-7 halftime cushion and his 36-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter capped a 422-yard performance by the offense, which took advantage of a short-handed Bartlett defense that took the field without three-year middle linebacker Mike Bucaro (mono) and senior linebacker Zach Hayes, a college hockey prospect who was excused to attend a tournament in Massachusetts with Team Illinois.
St. Charles North (2-0) took no mercy.
"We knew that they were going to try to back up into a cover-3 so we knew if we could throw underneath a little bit, we were going to get their secondary to come up," Reckards said. "Once we get that one-on-one coverage, that's when we're going to attack."
Mettetal was as efficient as he was potent. The 6-foot-1 junior completed 24 of 33 attempts for 337 yards and 4 touchdowns, including a 12-yard scoring pass to brother Tyler. That connection, along with the conversion pass from Brenden Norberg to Jake Spaniol, gave the North Stars a 28-7 third-quarter lead shortly after Adam Durocher's second field goal.
"Coming in, it was supposed to be short-game stuff, slants and hitches," Zach Mettetal said. "As we tried doing that in the first and second series, it wasn't working well, so we came out and just started throwing the ball deep. Obviously, it worked really well."
Bartlett (0-2) played a strong first quarter. The Hawks used a fake punt pass to keep their first drive alive, and quarterback Brenner Wallace cashed in 4 plays later with a 1-yard run on 2nd-and-goal for an early 7-0 lead.
However, there would be a long gap between Bartlett highlights as the North Stars rattled off 35 straight points, starting with Durocher's 40-yard field goal.
"They're strong kids, fast kids and we just didn't do a very good job," Bartlett coach Tom Meaney said. "We tried to change coverages quite a bit, but it wasn't effective. They were just very good. We go one-on-one a lot down the sideline and (Reckards) had like three fades for touchdowns. That's not good."
Offensively, Bartlett was limited to 70 rushing yards, 288 total. Quarterback Brenner Wallace completed 19 of 38 passes for 195 yards, including a late, 23-yard touchdown heave hauled down by 6-foot-4 tight end Jason Hasenberg with 7:43 left in the game.
"I thought the defense did a great job of recovering and we went into halftime up 17-7," St. Charles North coach Rob Pomazak said. "We wish it would have been more, but we felt like our game plan was pretty much right where we wanted it to be."
St. Charles North will try to make it three straight wins next week when West Chicago visits.
Bartlett, which is 0-2 for the second time in three years, will try to break into the win column next week against visiting West Aurora. The Hawks then face Neuqua Valley and rival South Elgin.
"We have to circle the wagons," Meaney said. "We can't start pointing fingers at anybody, that's first when you have a team that starts out 0-2. The schedule doesn't get any easier with West Aurora, Neuqua and South Elgin coming up. It's going to be a challenge. We just have to come back to work, work hard every day in practice and make our breaks."