Wheaton Academy mistakes add up to defeat
Sunday, September 16, 2007 - Daily Herald - By Darryll Melema
There will always be some bumps in the road for emerging football programs, and Saturday afternoon was one of those moments for Wheaton Academy's first-year varsity.
The Warriors traveled to Luther North and ran afoul of turnovers and penalties in addition to a host school that wanted to gain its first win of the season.
Three lost fumbles and 75 yards cut short a series of Wheaton Academy drives, and Luther North took full advantage for a 10-6 Private School League victory.
"Really what cost us the game was penalty errors," Wheaton Academy coach Ben Wilson said. "We haven't been penalized that much this season. Today the penalties really killed us."
Wheaton Academy fell to 2-2 overall and 1-1 in the Private School League with the defeat.
"We have to learn to play when we're up," Wilson said. "We've played when we were down, as at Genoa (50-7 loss). The thing about our team is that we're young. This year is going to be a great year for experience for these guys. As we go on, they'll learn more and more what it means to play in a varsity season."
The game was decided largely on field position. For the game Wheaton Academy had 149 offensive yards while Luther North (1-3, 1-1) had just 96 yards offensively.
That made the two plays that carried the Warriors inside the Wildcats' 10-yard line that were nullified by penalties especially painful.
"We had one of the best catches I've ever seen in high school play called back because of a penalty," Wilson said.
A roughing-the-kicker penalty helped set up the Wildcats for their first touchdown -- scored on a 53-yard pass from quarterback Mark Dryndrozyk to receiver Travis Mpistolarides on the opening play of the second quarter.
Mpistolarides was particularly devastating to Wheaton Academy. When Dryndrozyk left the game with a foot injury, Mpistolarides took over at quarterback. While he failed to move the ball with great effectiveness, Mpistolarides was able to engineer a drive for a field goal as time expired in the first half.
That drive began after a Wheaton Academy player muffed a punt -- and the Wildcats only had to drive 50 yards before Mpistolarides made a 21-yard field goal.
Wheaton Academy put together the best drive by either team at the end of the third quarter. The 12-play, 66-yard drive culminated when Brian Pell hit Hayden Goeckel for a 7-yard TD pass.
Pell completed his first 7 passes and finished 15 of 23 for 139 yards. His featured receiver was Jake Jones, who caught 8 passes for 78 yards.
-- Darryl Mellema