By Bobby Narang
Wheaton Warrenville South High School head football coach, Sean Norris, has a long way to go equal or surpass his predecessor, but his era started off on the right foot Friday.
The first-year Tigers’ head coach earned his first career victory in an epic fashion, by recording a 42-28 road victory over Oak Park-River Forest.
Now, Norris just needs to win 152 more games at Wheaton Warrenville South, and a few State championships and conference championships, to equal the success of long-time head coach Ron Muhitch, who guided the program 2002 to 2021.
Norris, though, preferred to talk about his players, mainly quarterback Matt Sommerdyke, his offensive linemen, and two-way starters Danny Healy and Reece Young. Just the third coach at Wheaton Warrenville South since 1980, Norris said the victory was a good start to the 2021 Fall season.
“Matt is a really good game manager,” Norris said, a former all-State quarterback at Wheaton North. “He’s so smart and throws a nice deep ball. He got us in the right position and did a phenomenal job leading the offense.
“We had 134 yards rushing and the offensive line did a really nice job. They’re communicating really well and jelling and working together as a unit. Danny and Reece played really well and really helped out because we had some injuries. They’re both great athletes.
The Tigers Friday will play host to Neuqua Valley, 1-0, a 37-27 victor over visiting Oswego..
St. Francis suffers tough loss.
For two-plus quarters, St. Francis looked as though it was a team ready to pull off a big upset over a larger school. Then, in a matter of 12 minutes, the Spartans were in a tailspin that ended with a 41-21 loss to Lake Forest.
“We got beat by a better football teams, for there’s no doubt,” St. Francis head coach Bob McMillen said. “We’ve got to have better play from all of our positions.”
In a battle between two teams which finished 6-0 in the shortened Spring season but each lost their starting quarterback, the victorious Scouts relied on their depth and strength to wear our the Class 4A Spartans. Lake Forest, a Class 6A school, broke open a 7-7 tie midway in the third quarter by scoring 20 straight points in a five-minute span.
The Spartans entered the season with questions at quarterback following the graduation of three-year starter, Tommy Rittenhouse. The Spartans, 0-1, used three quarterbacks in the loss, with starter Alessio Milivojevic and backups, Carson Vandello and Tommy Mooncotch, all showing some positives signs amid the late blowout.
St. Francis senior running back Blake Lawson said his team will make adjusts and grow from the difficult home defeat.
“We learned we have to hydrate better because we had a lot of guys go down,” Lawson said. ” It also will take time to adjust to a new quarterback for us because we lost a big one, but we will get better.”