Deerfield denies Grayslake North

For the second straight week, Grayslake North was right in the football game in the fourth quarter.

But the Knights still ended up a score away from finding their first win.

Grayslake North had 14 unanswered second half points in the second half and had deal with an hour-long lightning delay, but it was host Deerfield holding on to a 21-20 nonconference victory on Friday night.

"We keep shooting ourselves in the foot," Grayslake coach Same Baker said. "I'm sick of chances - we need a win. We have to stop having penalties, they just kill you. We just have to stop having mistakes and mental errors."

The Knights were down 21-6 at halftime to Deerfield (1-1)

Nicholas Lovitsch (4 catches, 131 yards) caught a 62-yard touchdown pass from Austin Martineau (13 of 23 passing for 210 yards). That made the score 21-12 with 11:12 left in the third quarter.

Martineau added another score on a 10-yard rushing touchdown with 3:58 left and he completed a pass to Lovitsch for a 2-point conversion that made the score 21-20.

Then lightning and a weather delay stopped the game with 11 seconds left in the quarter. After an hour, both teams returned to the field.

Grayslake North had three good opportunities with the ball but couldn't reach the end zone. On the last chance in the final minute, Martineau was picked off by Mathew Dawson.

"We came out at halftime flat," Deerfield coach Steve Winecki said. "I'm not saying the lightning delay was a godsend, but it got us a chance to get our minds right and we came out and played well defensively like we did in the first half. We did enough in the second half after the lightning delay."