Cary-Grove football runs over Jacobs to stay undefeated

CARY – Jacobs senior running back T.O. Boddie broke to the outside on the Golden Eagles’ fourth play of their opening drive against Cary-Grove and ran untouched 34 yards to the end zone.

That was the first touchdown allowed by C-G’s defensive starters all season and the first time the Trojans trailed in a game.

Cary-Grove, the defending Class 6A state champions, showed little worry. The Trojans scored the game’s next five touchdowns and coasted to a 35-14 victory in their Fox Valley Conference game at Al Bohrer Field.

The win sets up a first-place showdown next week between C-G (4-0, 4-0 FVC) and Prairie Ridge (4-0, 4-0), which defeated Huntley 35-13. The Wolves beat the Trojans 21-20 in last year’s meeting. Prairie Ridge went on to win the conference at 9-0.

“We started off a little slow tonight, but a big thing with our defense is we just go,” junior defensive lineman Ty Drayton said. “I’m kind of angry about giving up a score, but I’m happy with our performance. We played real physical.

“Because we were able to make such good adjustments, we were able to be aggressive.”

Cary-Grove ran for 393 yards on 56 carries for a 7.02 average. Junior fullback Logan Abrams led everyone with 159 yards and touchdown runs of 1 and 3 yards.

Senior quarterback Peyton Seaburg ran for 113 yards on 13 attempts, scoring a pair of 1-yard rushing TDs. Holden Boone added 74 yards on the ground, and Michael Massat had 31 yards and a 5-yard score for the Trojans’ final TD.

Abrams, who led Northwest Herald-area running backs a year ago with 1,590 yards, carried the ball 31 times. He said the work of C-G’s offensive line – Drayton, Ethan Hammer, Nathan Lieske, Lucas Burton, Jack Hissong and tight end Luca Vivaldelli – made his job easy Friday.

“We came right back at them,” Abrams said of C-G responding after Jacobs’ opening score. “We definitely had a lot of things working today on offense. ... It all starts with the O-line. No one’s getting any yards without their linemen. I’m not doing anything without them. They are the soul of our offense, for sure.”

Jacobs was led by junior fullback Caden DuMelle with 112 yards on 14 carries. Boddie also went over the century mark with 102 yards on 11 carries, including his 34-yard TD to open the game.

After the Trojans answered Jacobs’ opening score with a 1-yard touchdown run by Abrams, C-G’s defense had a big stop on fourth-and-1 from the Trojans’ 30. Drayton and Mike Sorensen came up to stuff DuMelle.

The Trojans scored on the ensuing possession on a 1-yard keeper by Seaburg to take a 14-7 lead with 8:13 remaining in the second quarter. Seaburg scored again on a 1-yard run right before halftime for a 21-7 advantage.

“Had a little adversity tonight and the guys responded well,” C-G coach Brad Seaburg said. “You’ve got to stop [Boddie] and [DuMelle] first, their horses, and I think we did a pretty good job of that. We’ve got a lot of seniors on defense who are very physical and are doing a fantastic job of preparing to win each week. Out at practice, you can tell kids are locked into our opponent every week.”

Jacobs scored its final touchdown of the game with 37.2 seconds remaining on a 22-yard pass from quarterback Connor Goehring to Luke Gormsen.

Jacobs coach Brian Zimmerman felt the offense didn’t execute to its full potential outside of the opening drive.

“Ultimately, we’ve got to stay on our blocks and we’ve got to hit the hole the right way,” Zimmerman said. “We have to convert on fourth-and-1 and not put our defense in bad situations. We thought it was going to be a close game and we let things spiral. In my eyes, this 100% falls on the offense. We have to clean it up.”