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Bartlett rolls over West Chicago

As Brenner Wallace goes, so goes the Bartlett football team.

And the senior quarterback went far Friday night in leading the Hawks to a 51-6 homecoming victory over West Chicago.

Piloting an up-tempo, no-huddle offense, Wallace completed 25 of 31 passes for 272 yards and 5 touchdowns, including a perfect 8-for-8 in the second half. He hit 7 different receivers, and threw a pair of touchdown passes apiece to fellow seniors Zachary Hayes and Nolan Bernat.

"Our team goes as Wallace goes, so if he has a good night, we're playing pretty well," said Bartlett coach Tom Meaney, who saw his team improve to 3-4 overall and 3-1 in the Upstate Eight Valley. "I thought we caught the ball much better tonight than we have."

And how. Bernat led the Hawks with 88 yards on 6 catches, while Hayes had 7 for 77. Senior Jacob Majewski had 4 for 38, while yet another senior, Jason Hasenberg, had 4 for 23.

Those gaudy stats were courtesy of Brenner, who was simply having a good time in a festive atmosphere.

"We like to be able to both run and pass the ball, obviously, so when we get a chance to spread it out and throw the ball more than we run it, that's always refreshing for me," he said. "That's something we emphasized this week especially, the fast pace, making sure the opponent is on their toes and everything, and making sure we can execute."

That's exactly what the Hawks did Friday.

Bartlett already had a 10-0 lead when Wallace took over at the West Chicago 30-yard line with 2:30 left in the first quarter. Two plays and 14 seconds later, he had his first touchdown pass of the night, a 23-yarder to Hayes up the middle, who split a pair of defenders as he made for the end zone.

Wallace struck again early in the second quarter, dropping back on a fourth-and-7 to hit Bernat in the flat on the left side. Bernat coolly juked one defender and dashed into the left corner of the end zone, a 24-yard scoring play with 4:47 left in the half that put Bartlett up 24-0 at its conclusion.

West Chicago went 5-and-out on its second-half-opening drive, and Bartlett took over at the Wildcats' 36. Four plays later, Wallace lofted a 10-yard scoring pass to Bernat with 9:14 left, who snagged the ball with his toes just inside the back line.

After West Chicago's ensuing drive went nowhere, it took Wallace just 5 plays to connect with senior Travious Brown-Utley on a 15-yard passing play. And when the Wildcats fumbled the ball away at their own 10-yard line on their next drive, Wallace made them pay by lofting a 10-yard touchdown pass Hayes in the right corner with 3:53 remaining in the period, thus starting a running clock.

"Brenner played fantastic," Bernat said. "He did a good job finding the open man and staying away from turnovers. He's one of our main guys that we go to to get us mentally prepared. He's a good leader."

But for as effective as Wallace was Friday, Meaney knows there is a bigger picture - that being the playoffs. Wins against Streamwood and Glenbard East in the final 2 weeks will make the Hawks eligible.

"We've got to win our last two to have a chance," he said simply. "Nothing's guaranteed at 5-4, but we have a lot of points."

It was a hard-luck night for West Chicago, which fell to 1-6 overall and 1-3 in the Upstate Eight Valley. The best scoring chance for the Wildcats came at the end of the second quarter, when Seeman led them on a 17-play drive down to the Bartlett 5-yard line, but just couldn't punch the ball through. Seeman got sacked back to the 13, then threw an incomplete pass as time expired.

To add insult to injury, Seeman got hurt early in the third quarter. His backup, senior Alex Turney, finished the game going 6-for-15 for 89 yards and completing a 1-yard touchdown pass to junior Zachary Stefan with 26.7 seconds left.

All told, though, West Chicago quarterbacks got picked off 4 times, including a pick-six with 3:06 left in the contest by Bartlett's Cameron Mays.

"The hardest thing for people to see when the scoreboard is like that is to see that we are getting better," said West Chicago coach Ted Monken. "There are some things we're doing much better, we're improving, the kids are coming out every week and trying to get better. We're making strides."

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