Lake Zurich dominates Fremd

The long-awaited return to normalcy - for now - arrived in Palatine at 7:45 p.m. on Friday when Fremd's Connor Cox kicked off to Lake Zurich's Tyler Erkman to begin the 2021 high school football season.

Lake Zurich continued its domination over Fremd with a 21-9 victory at Hale Hildebrandt Field. The Bears have won 8 of their previous 10 games against the Vikings.

"We knew that it would be running back by committee tonight," said Lake Zurich coach Ron Planz. "We wanted to establish the run tonight so we had to keep everyone fresh with this heat."

The first quarter was scoreless as both teams tried to shake off the rust from not having a full season in the fall of 2020.

The Bears got on the board first with 9:37 left in the second quarter after they began a 17 play, 80-yard drive that began in the first quarter.

Ben Cooper scored from 4-yards out and Danny Vukovic converted the point after touchdown.

Fremd scored with just over a minute remaining in the first half on a 24-yard field goal from Connor Cox.

Cal Grabowski scored twice for Lake Zurich in the third quarter on runs of 9 and 7-yards to give the Bears a 21-3 lead. Vukovic converted both tries.

"We missed our fans in the spring season and they really gave us some inspiration tonight," Planz said. "We call them our 12th man and it was good to have them back out here."

Fremd scored its only touchdown of the game after their own 17 play, 80-yard drive. Jeremy Gearhart had a 7-yard touchdown run to cut the Lake Zurich lead to 21-9. The point after was blocked by Lake Zurich.

Cooper had 110 yards on 18 carries for the Bears. Lake Zurich had a total of 190 yards rushing. Quarterback Jarred Meyers was an efficient 6 of 7 passing for 50 yards.

Fremd quarterback Caiden Suchy was 11 of 26 for 119 yards for Fremd with two interceptions.

"We will have to own this," said Fremd coach Lou Sponsel. "We have to get back to work on the fundamentals and the simple things."