Conor Joyce remembers quite well the recipe Naperville Central used a year ago when it last met Naperville North.
Joyce remembers the night Kevin Clifford enjoyed as Clifford ran 31 times for 256 yards and a score as Naperville Central earned a 21-point victory over its crosstown rivals.
“They’re kind of like a zone-coverage team, from last year,” Joyce said. “Last year, we didn’t have to throw it too much because that was one of (Cliff’s) best games of the year. But we’ll just see going into Friday what they’re going (to do), how they’re going to play us and we’ll figure out from then how we’re going to attack it.
“We know – going into Naperville North – we don’t take anything lightly. It’s a rivalry game, so records don’t usually really come into play and they’re going to give us their absolute best game. It’s a great atmosphere at North Central College and we know we need to play our best game, as well, because we respect North as an opponent. They’ll be a tough team.”
As Joyce prepares for his second meeting opposite the Huskies on Friday night at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium, he’ll do so no longer with Clifford by his side but armed with the knowledge the last two weeks have given him.
The past two weeks, during victories over both Wheaton Warrenville South and Batavia, have seen him pass for a combined 452 yards and four touchdowns.
All four touchdowns have gone to Iowa-bound Emmanuel Rugamba while Matt Lehmann led the way with his 124 receiving yards in the Redhawks’ 34-14 victory over the Bulldogs last week.
“It’s nice. We’ve obviously had some success the last couple games throwing the ball,” Naperville Central coach Mike Stine said. “We know – and everyone knows – we want to be a run-first team. We feel we have the ability to be able to throw. We feel we have some weapons and the last couple of weeks – we’ve been able to make some plays.
“The game really comes down to can your playmakers make plays? And in big games – at any level – if your playmakers can step up and make plays, you got a chance. And we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do that.”
For Naperville North coach Sean Drendel, the production Luke Brady and Jeremiah Wiggins have combined to give the Redhawks from a running back standpoint just adds to what Joyce, Rugamba and Lehmann can do.
On the year, Brady and Wiggins have combined to run for 637 yards and eight touchdowns.
“Obviously, it’s going to be tough to replace a guy like Clifford, but they’ve done a great job,” Drendel said of Brady and Wiggins. “They’re two different style of runners a little bit, which makes it a little bit difficult to game plan (in) that they want to do a little bit different things with both of them. So you’ve got to prep for both of them, which makes it a little bit tougher.”
For the eighth-ranked Redhawks (5-1, 4-1), a spot in the Class 8A postseason field officially comes with a fourth victory over Naperville North (0-6, 0-5) in the teams’ last five meetings.
Drendel is quite frank when asked how his young Huskies will match up with the Redhawks.
“They’re way better than us,” he said. “We can’t match up at all.”
To try and counter the weaponry Joyce, Rugamba, Lehmann, Brady and Wiggins present, Naperville North will look to get its double wing offense back on track.
Senior Jaylen Lockhart has run for 581 yards with three touchdowns on 94 carries through six games but has been held to a combined 58 yards the last two weeks by Glenbard North and Neuqua Valley.
“We have so much to prove,” Lockhart said. “We just work our butts off constantly. On film, you can see it in some games and on film; you can’t see it in some other games. We know it’s just one more block, it’s just one little rep, one extra step here, one extra little thing that we have to tweak, we have to have a play go our way and we know we’ll just explode on the scoreboard.”
All three quarterbacks – Luke Cegles, Dylan Fadden and Vic Slopecki – played for the Huskies in their 34-7 loss at Neuqua Valley last week.
While fully acknowledging the difficulty Lockhart, Cam Hardy, Matt Montgomery provide opponents within the double wing, Stine has full confidence Naperville Central will be ready for whoever is behind center.
“Mike (Ulreich) and the (defensive) coaching staff, they’ll come up with a game plan,” he said. “They’ll devise a game plan. We’re pretty good at putting together personnel packages and whatever personnel they have in the game, we’ll have a scheme for. Our kids are usually pretty good at adjusting to that.”
Both Stine and Drendel have stressed the importance of what this week means – as if either side needs a refresher course.
While the Redhawks are eyeing a bigger prize down the road with the postseason beginning three weeks from Friday, the Huskies know they just have three weeks left in their season.
And they want to make the most of it.
“Any time you play your rival – you’re looking forward to it,” Drendel said. “It can turn a season on a dime and our concern isn’t to impact the (DVC) race. Our concern is to try to win football games for us and for most of all, our seniors. So that’s our concern this week and our main focus is to get better and fundamentally give ourselves a chance to win a football game.”
