Lake Park (5-4, 2-3 DuPage Valley in 2014) @ Waubonsie Valley (9-2, 6-1 Upstate Eight Valley in 2014), 7:30 p.m.
Storyline: Waubonsie Valley enters its era inside the DuPage Valley Conference against a familiar face: Lake Park.
Old conference foes inside the Upstate Eight, the Lancers and Warriors lock horns tonight for the first time since Sept. 2012.
Senior quarterback Jack Connolly gets his opportunity to show what he do leading the Waubonsie Valley triple-option as Zack Bennema has since moved on to be a preferred walk-on at Baylor.
To help aid Connolly in the backfield, Rodney Gee takes the running back baton from the graduated Tony Durns.
Defensively, the Warriors will be mixing and matching new names alongside senior middle linebacker Max Ihry, who returns after compiling 110 tackles and 5.5 sacks last year.
After splitting time with Mike Perry at quarterback last year, the Lancers’ offense will be led by Jaron Fields.
Michigan State-bound defensive tackle Mike Panasiuk will lead the Lake Park defense against Connolly, Gee and crew as the unit looks to replace cornerback Antonio Shenault, who has moved on to play for another Big Ten school, Minnesota.
Waubonsie Valley defeated Lake Park, 49-28, in 2012 and has won six straight over Lake Park overall.
The Lancers’ last victory in the series came by virtue of a 21-14 triumph in Roselle on Oct. 6, 2006.
Waubonsie Valley coach Paul Murphy on Lake Park: “They’ve only been out of our conference for two years, so we played them back in 2012 when (Austin) Guido and those guys were seniors. That’s the last time we played them. Our 10-2 team played them, so still got the film from back then. They played Naperville Central the last game of the year, Week 9, so that was one of our trade tapes with Central getting ready for the playoffs. We know that they’ve got the good Division I defensive lineman (Panasiuk) there. Other than that, I don’t have a roster on them. So I don’t know who else they got coming back.”
“(Lake Park coach Chris Roll) will have them ready, obviously. I think the last time we played them was either his first or second year being a head coach. He had been an assistant for a long time. Now he’s got a few more years under his belt as a head coach. He’s been in the DVC for a couple years. So I’m sure that they’ve made whatever adjustments they need to be very, very competitive in the DVC. And so I expect a team that’s a hard-nosed football team that we’ll be playing the first game.”
