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Hinsdale South beats Willowbrook for first win

Though it was winless through the first three weeks of the season, the Hinsdale South football team was just a few plays away from a vastly different record.

On Friday night the Hornets finally came through with those big plays.

Spurred on by a pair of return touchdowns by D.J. Anderson, Hinsdale South came from behind to defeat Willowbrook 30-27 in Villa Park.

"All of them (the three losses) were tight, close games," said Anderson, who is in his first season of playing high school football. "The thing we struggled with was playing all four quarters. Today we played all four quarters."

The Hornets went ahead for good with 3:37 left in the fourth quarter on an 18-yard touchdown pass from Brian Rudolph to Nick Wenkus.

"This is an awesome feeling, a great team effort," Rudolph said. "Coach always tells us, you have to go and find that play. This week, we found those plays."

Anderson put the visitors on the scoreboard early with a 27-yard interception return for a score. He then added a 70-yard scamper to the end zone off a blocked field goal in the third quarter, which gave the Hornets (1-3, 1-1) a 20-14 lead.

"It's been very frustrating up to this point," Hinsdale South coach Mike Barry said. "The big plays just haven't been there; we saw some lost opportunities. Today we were able to capitalize on those and it's great for our young men to see their hard work pay off."

Trailing 23-14 late in the third quarter, the Warriors (2-2, 1-1) responded with back-to-back scoring drives. Jack Jessen broke free for a 25-yard TD run and then added a 5-yard scamper to paydirt with six minutes left.

"We spotted them 21 points," Willowbrook coach Nick Hildreth said. "The pick-6, the fumble inside our 25 that led to a touchdown and the blocked field goal for a TD. That's 21 points we gave to a pretty good football team.

"But despite all those things, we still had the lead. We had a chance to get a stop and we didn't."

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