ELGIN – Aurora Central Catholic set the tone for Friday night’s nonconference game at St. Edward on its very first drive of the game.
Engineered by senior quarterback Kevin Stanislo, who ran for 22 yards and passed for 62 on the drive, he scored on a 2-yard run with 7:21 left in the first quarter.
The Chargers (1-0) never looked back.
Stanislo, who accounted for 285 yards of total offense, threw for threw touchdowns and ran for two others as ACC opened with a 38-22 win over the Green Wave at Greg True Field in Elgin.
“Kevin makes me look good,” ACC coach Christian Rago said. “That first drive was so important. We got the momentum right away and that gave us a different attitude.”
Stanislo ran 15 times for 112 yards which included touchdown runs of two and 25 yards. The senior also completed 13-of-23 passes for 173 yards and two touchdowns to Grant Bohr and Conor Hickey.
“That first drive of the game was so important,” Stanislo said. “It was a great team effort. We wanted to make sure we punched it in on the first drive.”
Hickey, who grabbed a 50-yard pass, caught 3 passes for 67 yards while Grayson Mayerhofer caught 4 for 27.
Trey Siefrid spearheaded the Charger running game with 92 yards on 16 carries with a touchdown run of 2 yards,
St. Edward (0-1), which trailed 20-0 at halftime, didn’t quit and scored two late fourth quarter touchdowns on a 23-yard pass from Andrew Walker to Nolan Pomeroy and a 55-yard TD pass from Walker to Aiden Coleman.
“We made way too many mistakes in the first half and that is what we talked about at halftime,” said the Green Wave’s first-year coach Shane Finnane. “We didn’t show enough discipline and focus. We didn’t quit.”