Meadows gallops past Schaumburg 49-28
Despite a valiant effort, Schaumburg was unable to hold off an explosive Rolling Meadows unit on Friday night.
The Mustangs galloped through the Saxons 49-28 at Gary Scholz Stadium to even their record at 1-1 on the season in a Mid-Suburban crossover.
"We knew going into this week that Schaumburg was going to be hungry because they faced a tough (Week 1) opponent in York and we had to play more physical, and we had to have more a sense of urgency and we had to execute at a higher level," Meadows coach Sam Baker said.
"We did that tonight (while) battling through a lot of adversity, which is going to help us going forward."
Meadows QB Evan Grace led the offense with a 424-yard effort on 16-of-28 passing with 4 TD passes.
He got going after throwing the first of 2 interceptions to Saxons defender Marcus Stewart less than two minutes into the game. The miscues allowed Schaumburg to score first on a 32-yard pass from Joey Macaluso to Anthony DiGioia, making it 7-0.
On their next offensive series, Grace found Ben Petermann (6 receptions, 201 yards) on a 30-yard pass that evened the contest at 7.
Then the game turned in Meadows' favor when what appeared to be 93-yard kickoff return by Schaumburg's Omarion Jones was called back on a holding penalty. That pinned the Saxons deep in their own territory, leading to a fumble recovery by the Mustangs at the Saxons' 5.
Skip Rozanski (20 carries, 77 yards) converted from the 1-yard line four plays later and that put Meadows ahead to stay, 14-7.
Grace next found Steven Schiele (5 receptions, 115 yards) on a 67-yard bomb expand the Meadows' advantage to 21-7 at the end of the first.
Rozanski's second TD (2 yards) gave them a 28-7 cushion heading into halftime.
But Schaumburg (0-2) made it interesting in the second half.
Jones took the kickoff 95 yards to open the half.
That electric play was followed by the second Macaluso to DiGioia scoring connection that pulled the Saxons within 28-21. But Grace's third and fourth TD tosses to Schiele and Petermann had Meadows back in control 42-21 at the end of third.
Grace credited his squad's resiliency to bounce back from a season-opening loss at Glenbrook South as key to the win.
"Obviously we didn't like that outcome last week, but the next day we said that we had to use it as a learning experience and do the best we can and our guys stepped it up so great," Grace said. "Everyone just played great together and we played as a team and changed it around so good. I couldn't be more proud of our guys."