South Elgin shakes off slow start, blows out East Aurora
Things didn't exactly go according to plan for South Elgin on the opening two drives Friday.
The Storm fumbled on their first possession and East Aurora recovered. On the Tomcats' second play from scrimmage, Ralph Clark cut across the field and raced 59 yards for a score, putting East Aurora ahead 6-0.
After that, though, Storm coach Dragan Teonic couldn't have scripted it much better. The Storm reeled off 49 unanswered points before halftime. With the clock running throughout the second half, South Elgin cruised to a 52-20 Upstate Eight win in South Elgin.
At 5-0, South Elgin became playoff eligible for the sixth straight year.
Jake Sullivan threw 2 touchdown passes to Kyle Steinhofer and ran for 2 more scores as the Storm celebrated Homecoming with its 18th straight home win.
Steinhofer also ran for a score, as did Jordan Green and Ari Kravis. Steinhofer added a 27-yard field goal and the Storm blocked a Tomcat punt out of the end zone for a safety.
To complete his all-around day, Steinhofer kicked 5 extra points and added an interception on defense for good measure.
"We started to establish a little bit of run, a little bit of pass, and we were able to move the ball," Teonic said. "They gave us a cool look on defense that we haven't seen all year. That was something we had to work against, so that was good. I thought our first-team defense did a pretty good job for the most part. It was a good football game. We got better in a lot of ways."
Sullivan completed 6 of 10 passes for 112 yards before getting the second half off. All the completions went to Steinhofer. Sullivan was also the Storm's leading rusher with 90 yards on only 9 carries. Mason Montgomery racked up 81 yards and Green added 50 for the Storm.
South Elgin held the visitors to just 86 yards in the first half, with most of that coming on Clark's run.
East Aurora started the second half the same way as the first, with a Clark touchdown run. He finished with an even 100 yards on the ground.
After Clark's first touchdown, the Storm answered immediately, moving 71 yards in 8 plays. Sullivan completed a 35-yarder to Steinhofer to move into Tomcats territory, then found his favorite receiver again for the score.
South Elgin got scoring runs from Kravis and Green and a safety before the end of the first quarter. The Storm scored 4 more times in the second, with Sullivan and Steinhofer accounting for all the scores. Sullivan scored on runs of 4 and 32 yards. Steinhofer scored from 3 yards out on a reverse and caught a 1-yard pass from Sullivan.