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St. Charles North rallies at Wheaton North

A little momentum can help carry a team a long way.

St. Charles North (2-1, 1-0) scored a pair of touchdowns within a 3-minute, 19-second span of the fourth quarter to rally past Wheaton North 20-17 in both teams' DuKane Conference football opener Friday night at Rexilius Field in Wheaton.

Trailing 17-7 at halftime, the North Stars had a third-quarter scoring opportunity erased by a turnover deep inside Falcons territory on Wheaton North sophomore defensive back Jackson Moore's fumble recovery.

However, the North Stars' defense forced a punt and senior quarterback Kyler Brown (18 of 28, 303 yards) engineered a 9-play, 57-yard drive capped by Ben Furtney's 3-yard touchdown run to cut the deficit to 17-14 with 8:03 remaining.

The drive included completions of 37 and 17 yards from Brown to senior receiver Ryan Thiesse (6 catches, 149 yards).

It appeared that the North Stars' momentum would be short-lived after the Falcons' Kaiden Libby returned the ensuing kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown.

But the play was called back due to a holding penalty.

"That was an interesting one," said Falcons coach Joe Wardynski. "I'll have to watch the tape on that one. From way over here, it looked like it was a clean block."

"Sometimes you need a few of those things to go your way," North Stars coach Rob Pomazak said of the penalty that nullified the long kick return. "They had a few of those things go their way in the first half."

Following a subsequent 3-and-out series, the Falcons (2-1, 0-1) were forced to punt the ball back to the North Stars.

After Jimmy Durocher's 18-yard punt return to the 36, the North Stars marched 64 yards in 6 plays for the go-ahead score - a 21-yard fade pass from Brown to Thiesse in the back corner of the end zone that put St. Charles North ahead for the first time, 20-17, with 4:44 left.

"We ran that play the whole game and we executed it," said Thiesse, who also came up big in the defensive secondary for the North Stars.

"Ryan was the player of the game for sure," said Pomazak. "Offensively, we're battling. We put some good things together in the passing game toward the end of the game today."

The Falcons struck first, as quarterback Mark Forcucci (15 of 24, 179 yards) handed off to Brayton Maske, who pitched the ball back to Forcucci before finding a wide-open Libby (9 catches, 114 yards) on a 79-yard TD pass.

The successful flea-flicker gave the Falcons an early 7-0 lead.

"It was a play we thought we could get on them," said Wardynski.

Nick DeMarco's 2-yard TD run tied the game at 7-7 after 1 quarter before the Falcons scored 10 unanswered points in the second quarter.

Nathan Love found pay dirt from 2 yards out before Love connected on a 40-yard field goal on the final play of the opening half.

But the North Stars won the second half, 13-0, and more importantly, the game.

"We're finding ourselves," said Pomazak.

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