advertisement

Huntley pulls away from West Aurora

Huntley's offense is like a lit stick of dynamite and West Aurora took the brunt of the latest explosion Friday night in Aurora.

One week after the Blackhawks had their 13-game regular-season winning streak snapped by South Elgin and athletic quarterback Nate Gomez, they had the misfortune of running into another of the area's best all-around athletes in Huntley quarterback Eric Mooney.

The senior rushed for 229 yards and 4 touchdowns in 18 attempts and threw for 85 yards and a touchdown to lead the Red Raiders to a 42-14 nonconference victory at Ken Zimmerman Field.

Huntley's victory spoiled homecoming for West Aurora (4-2), which did the same to the Red Raiders last year with a 27-21 road win.

"They took it away from us last year; Let's take it away from them this year," Mooney said of his team's underlying motivation. "I'm excited we did it."

Mooney ran for touchdowns of 3 and 21 yards in the first half to stake Huntley (5-1) to a 21-7 halftime lead. He added second-half scoring jaunts of 28 and 43 yards, separated by a 10-yard scoring strike to senior Michael Godek.

"We had a hard time last week with Gomez and he was probably the best quarterback I've seen so far this year and (Mooney) topped that," West Aurora defensive end Cameron Lewis-Walker said. "I thought we'd have a little experience going against Mooney, but he's the deal. He's for real. I like how they play and it was a good game. We just didn't finish and we made a few errors. Hopefully, we can fix that next week against West Chicago."

The Huntley offense wasn't all Mooney. Senior running back Melvin Aninagyei-Bonsu rushed for 164 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries. In fact, he scored the game's first touchdown.

The Blackhawks answered with a touchdown on their first possession. Junior JaQuan Buchanan caught a short pass from sophomore quarterback William Tammaru, cut inside a defender and raced 49 yards to the end zone.

After Huntley took a 14-point lead on two Mooney scoring runs, West Aurora had a chance to get right back in the hunt before halftime but was unable to capitalize after driving to Huntley's 5-yard line. Facing fourth-and-goal, Tammaru's pass fell incomplete with 48 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

"I loved how we played tonight," said Huntley linebacker Charlie Zornow, who registered a sack. "I thought we rallied as a defense and the offense, obviously, put some points up on the board."

Huntley came close to its 45 point-per-game scoring average by outgaining West Aurora 513 total yards to 296. It was a matter of simple math, if you ask the quarterback.

"If they're going to put seven guys, eight guys in the box and man up, we'll throw it deep on you," Mooney said. "If you play off, we're going to run up the middle. We've got the line to pass and we've got speed to have deep threats. It's a hard offense to stop, that's for sure. And as of right now there's really no defense that's shown they've been able to stop us yet."

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.