St. Charles East rolls past Glenbard East
It could have been worse, or, from the St. Charles East perspective, it could have been better.
Regardless of your perspective, however, the Saints scored another big nonconference football win, defeating Glenbard East 42-0 Friday night in Lombard.
Saints quarterback Clayton Isbell continued to impress, running for two touchdowns and throwing for two more. Not that he has a preference between the two methods of scoring.
"Scoring touchdowns is great," Isbell said. Throwing or running, doesn't matter."
It was the second straight week the Saints hit the 40-point mark, having beaten Rock Island 41-7 in Week 1.
"Our offensive line is doing a great job," Isbell said. "We're real young, and so they're trying to get a lot of experience together."
Isbell carried the football 15 times for 186 yards, opening the scoring with a 53-yard run straight up the middle on the Saints' first possession. A 40-yard pass to Ronan Macaluso and an 11-yard pass to Matthew Goetsch gave the Saints (2-0) a 21-0 halftime lead. Isbell finished 3-of-7 passing for 85 yards but didn't throw a second-half pass.
Meanwhile, the Saints defense didn't allow the Rams (0-2) any second-half first downs in the shutout.
"Our defense has that kind of mentality, the dog mentality," Isbell said. "They work hard in practice. The scout team offense gives them great reps, so it's all coming together."
"We moved the ball between the 30s, and that was the story of the night," Rams coach John Walters said. "...We got down to the 30-yard line, we went backwards. We didn't complete passes, we didn't protect our quarterback, we didn't run the ball well."
The Saints opened the second half with a 67-yard drive that lasted more than nine minutes before Macaluso ran for a 9-yard touchdown and a 28-0 lead.
"They melted the whole third quarter away," Walters said. "... If you want to beat them you've got to get on the front end. They get on the front end and the game's over."
After a Justin Jett 1-yard TD run, Isbell gave the Saints a running clock the final 7:02 with a 7-yard TD run.
The stats weren't all good for the Saints, though. They committed 11 penalties for 110 yards.
"It was OK," Saints coach Bryce Farquhar said. "We really did struggle execution-wise, I thought. I know 42-0 sounds like we should be really happy, but I thought we're capable of executing at a higher level. Just a lot of mental mistakes tonight. The kids have high expectations for the season, and if they're going to accomplish those, they can't have the mental mistakes they had tonight."