GRAYSLAKE—Grayslake North football coach Steve Wood knew it would be a challenge to win without his starting quarterback, Merrick Gentile, Friday night.
It also didn’t help matters much that the Knights were hosting Cary-Grove, the top-ranked team in Class 7-A.
“Did (the injury) put us behind? Of course it did,” he said after a 42-7 home loss to the Trojans. “Is it the reason we didn’t win the game? No.”
With Gentile sidelined with a “little shoulder thing,” the Knights (1-2, 1-0 Fox Valley Conference Fox Division) turned to junior Jake Wright at quarterback. But it wasn’t until Titus Booker took a few snaps that Grayslake North got on the board, with a 52-yard bomb from the Indiana commit to receiver Andrew Martineau.
“He’s got a cannon for an arm. He throws so hard,” Wood said. “It’s just unbelievable. Some of our receivers don’t even like catching the ball because he throws it so hard.”
The scoring strike knotted the game at 7-7 just before the end of the first quarter. But over the next three quarters the Trojans slowed Booker and the Knights, holding the touted running back to just 58 yards on the ground while limiting Grayslake North to 162 yards of total offense.
Meanwhile, the Knights struggled to contain Cary-Grove’s dominant running game.
The Trojans (3-0, 1-0 Fox Valley Conference) piled up 388 of their 402 yards of offense on the ground. Fullback Tyler Pennington and running back Zach McQuade each topped the 100-yard mark.
“It's always nice to spread the wealth. We want everyone to score," said running back Matt Sutherland, who added a pair of touchdown runs. "We want to score as much as possible and get the backups in so they get chances to score their varsity touchdowns as well."
Despite the lopsided score, Wood took some positives from the way his team played against a stout opponent.
“We’ve given up points to so many teams. We have not played great defense,” he said. “I was really thrilled with how our kids played defensively.”
But now, as the Knights prepare to host Normal West on Friday, they won’t be able to take very many more moral victories. They’ll be looking for the ones that count on the scoreboard and the record book.
“We need to win a game here to make the playoffs,” Wood said.