Saints run away from Corsairs
St. Charles East’s football team sure looked a lot like a track team.
The Saints ran all over Carmel early and often with long rushing and passing plays that looked more like sprints en route to a breezy 38-7 victory in a nonconference game Friday in Mundelein, which was halted temporarily in the fourth quarter by a lightning delay.
The Saints (2-0) scored on five of their six first-half possessions.
“We came out with a lot of emotion and played really well in the first half,” St. Charles East coach Bryce Farquhar said. “It was just option offense. Our kids were reading who was open, and they made the calls. Our quarterback [William Crossen] did a nice job in the first half coming through and checking into the right calls.”
On the second play from scrimmage, Crossen (138 rushing yards on 10 carries; 7-for-13 passing for 168 yards) ran for a 79-yard touchdown.
On its next possession, St. Charles needed only six plays to score, capped by a 46-yard touchdown run by Ronan Macaluso (84 yards on seven carries).
St. Charles’ third touchdown was set up by another long run, this time from Justin Jett (148 yards on 14 carries). His 68-yard run put the Saints inside the red zone, and two plays later, Crossen hit Benjamin Rogers for a 15-yard touchdown pass.
Yet another big gainer keyed the Saints’ fourth touchdown drive, a 54-yard pass from Crossen to Daniel Goetsch, who made a fabulous one-handed catch in traffic along the sideline before sprinting to the 15-yard line.
That set up a two-yard touchdown run two plays later for Jett.
“In triple option, you’re always looking for different guys who can make plays,” Farquhar said. “Our fullback [Jett] is going to be a fouryear starter for us. Our quarterback is a junior but he got reps last year. He’s doing a really nice job for us. And we’ve got a ton of backs that we haven’t had in the past, and our wide receivers are doing a nice job of stretching the field and keeping those corners honest.”
The Saints rolled up 417 yards of offense in the first half to just 90 for Carmel (0-2).
St. Charles’ lone touchdown of the second half came on a twoyard run by Macaluso.
Sean Lynch (128 yards on 17 carries) had a 64-yard touchdown run for Carmel to cap the scoring.
“In the second half, we fell a little flat and had penalties and turnovers that were unacceptable,” Farquhar said.
“A lot of mental errors in the second half. We gave the ball up a lot, and we wanted to finish the game strong.”