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Naperville Central offense overpowers Wheaton North

With the way the Naperville Central offense has been clicking lately, opposing defensive coordinators must have trouble sleeping while preparing to take on the Redhawks.

In Friday night's DuPage Valley Conference game, visiting Wheaton North took to the field with a game plan designed to slow the Redhawks' ground attack and also try and keep an extra eye on talented, speedy wideout Emmanuel Rugamba.

Naperville Central did not put up huge numbers on the ground and Rugamba was held to a pedestrian 4 catches for 58 yards, but several other Redhawks made big plays in an impressive 34-14 win that improved the playoff-bound hosts to 7-1 and 6-1 in the DVC.

Quarterback Conor Joyce was 15 for 19 through the air for 264 yards and hooked up with three receivers for TD passes as Naperville Central stayed atop the DVC standings with one week remaining. Matt Lehmann had 9 catches for 178 yards, including a 75-yard TD catch on the first play of the second half that put the hosts on top of the Falcons 31-0.

"We feel like we've got some weapons out there and we feel like teams have to decide what they want to take away from us," Redhawks coach Mike Stine said.

"They were putting eight guys in the box and they were trying to play some games there. At times they wanted to double Manny, and that left Matt 1-on-1. Teams are finding out that Matt's a pretty good receiver."

On Friday Joyce had a slew of good receivers. Tight end Jack Piper, known more for his blocking, hauled in a 26-yard scoring pass on the team's first possession, while Jordan Crissy's leaping fourth-down grab in the back corner of the end zone made the score 24-0 with five minutes left in the first half.

"We've had a roll these last few weeks and we wanted to keep it going. Wheaton North is a great opponent and we didn't take them lightly," said Joyce, who connected with five receivers. "We've got great playmakers like Matt, Manny, and an offensive line that's great. It makes these plays easy."

Lehmann regularly makes Joyce's job easy by grabbing short passes and making defenders miss as he picks up big yardage. On the night's biggest play, however, he just blew past the defense and caught the ball in stride on his way to the 75-yard play that broke the Falcons' backs. Coming in at 3-4, Wheaton North needed to win its final two games to make the playoffs, but a hot Naperville Central team was not about to let that happen.

"When we play together like that it's hard to stop us," Lehmann said. "Our offense is starting to develop. They (opposition) don't know who they should guard."

Wheaton North quarterback Luke Anthony did run for one touchdown and pass for a second score to Marcus Gustaveson in the second half, but it was just not enough.

"They have some nice pieces in the receivers and the quarterback and they do enough in the running game," Falcons coach Joe Wardynski said after the Redhawks had eliminated his team from playoff contention for a second straight year. "They're a very good program and they played a much better football game than we did today. Sure, it's a tough schedule, no doubt about it. But if we want to be a good team we've got to beat good teams. We haven't done enough of that this year, and that starts with me."

Images: Wheaton North falls to Naperville Central, 34-14 in football

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