By KEVIN CHROUST - editorial@kcchronicle.com
Close victory keeps Saints’ winning streak alive
ST. CHARLES – The St. Charles East football team now has scored a total of 14 points the past two weeks, and it has two wins to show for it.
For the second straight week, the Saints managed a single touchdown, yet escaped with another 7-3 victory, this time over Neuqua Valley at home on homecoming.
“It’s our D,” defensive back and wide receiver Tyler Nutting said. “We come out here and that’s what we do. We’re just doing our job. We’re making stops.”
The win keeps East (6-2, 6-0 Upstate Eight Conference) undefeated in conference with a chance to win Upstate Eight outright. East has clinched a share of the conference with Lake Park losing to Waubonsie Valley, 36-14, on Friday night.
The Saints play St. Charles North next week.
“We’ve just got to have one more point than they do,” coach Mike Fields said. “We’ll take these 7-3s and we’ll muddle through it, and we’ve got a heck of a good one next week we’ve got to get ready for. We need to fix some things.”
The Saints managed just 139 yards of total offense against the Wildcats (2-6, 2-3 UEC), but managed to put together one second-half scoring drive that gave them the slight lead that turned out to be all they would need.
East started the drive on its own 21-yard line and immediately was backed up to the 16 by a false start.
Three plays later, the Saints faced a third-and-16 on which Fields elected to play the field position game and call a run. But it ended up being the Saints’ longest running play, a 27-yard run by Zack Zajicek to get the first down and more.
Two plays later, quarterback Nolan Possley found tight end Jess Striedl for a 32-yard gain to put the Saints at the Wildcats’ 27.
Possley found Nutting in the end zone on the next play to take the lead with 9:44 left in the third quarter. Nutting also intercepted a ball with 4 seconds left in the game to secure the win.
From there, it was all defense. Neuqua Valley went on an 11-play drive in the middle of the third quarter that, at one point, had the Wildcats with a second-and-goal situation from the 2.
But after a delay-of-game penalty followed by an offensive pass interference call in the end zone, the Wildcats were backed up to the 22 and eventually turned the ball over on downs.
East will try to figure out its offensive slump between now and Friday’s home showdown with North. The Saints’ once-successful running game has seen plenty of eight-mans fronts the past two weeks, and Fields plans to go back to the drawing board to get that ironed out in the next six days.
“When they put eight guys in the box you’ve got to throw the ball,” Fields said. “We’ve got some play-action things. We’ve got some rollout things and we haven’t had to do a lot of that. This is new to us.
“We’re still learning it and we’re fortunate that we get another week next week to be able to do that. We’ll try to get a little bit better next week and maybe make it a little more balanced with our pass and run.”