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Wheaton North stops Lake Forest

Wheaton North spent Friday night busy opening up its offense as a long night ended in favor of the Falcons in a nonconference football game.

Wheaton North won at Lake Forest 21-12 in a game that included an hour-long lightning delay.

"That's a good program (Lake Forest) over there, but we were determined not to start the season 0-2," coach Joe Wardynski said after his guys evened up their record at 1-1. DuKane Conference play begins next week when the Falcons travel to St. Charles North.

"It was a battle of possessions tonight, but we had enough stops," Wardynski added.

A spirited Lake Forest (0-2) jumped to an early 7-0 lead when senior quarterback James Swarthout hooked up with senior running back Jacob Thomas on a screen pass for 61 yards with 9:15 left in the first.

But the Falcons tightened things up and got rolling with 13 unanswered points in the second quarter and a 13-7 halftime lead.

Junior quarterback Nathan Love kicked field goals of 34 and 32 yards. Sandwiched in between was a Love 1-yard plunge, mind you, with one shoe.

Wheaton North then got its special teams involved when junior return man Christian Halstead left everyone in his wake by returning the opening kickoff of the second half 80 yards to the house and a 21-7 lead.

"With all of the adversity going on tonight, that special teams touchdown was huge," Wardynski said.

Then, the rains came.

When play resumed, Lake Forest managed a Petzer hit a 27-yard third quarter field goal, followed by a safety in the waning seconds of the fourth.

With senior starting running back sidelined for precautions with a rolled ankle in the opener, the running game was punishing nonetheless with junior speedster Stephen Garner rumbling for 164 yards on 28 carries.

"He did a really nice job," Wardynski said.

And Love ended up completing 8 of 15 passes for 119 yards with his favorite target senior Jake Johnson.

Meanwhile, the defense featured a pic by junior linebacker Xander Mueller and the defense sacked Swarthout six times on the evening.

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