The game has been postponed until 6PM Saturday
Metea Valley (1-2, 1-2 DuPage Valley) @ Wheaton North (1-2, 1-1 DuPage Valley), 7:30PM
Last week: Metea Valley lost at Naperville Central, 27-7; Wheaton North won at Naperville North, 20-7
Storyline: After opening the season by facing off with three area teams, Metea Valley travels to Wheaton to meet Wheaton North for the first time.
The Mustangs held a halftime lead, in large part because of a Conner Lovely touchdown run, at Naperville Central before watching the Redhawks tally 21 second-half points.
Lovely completed 26-of-33 passes for 213 yards while Maurice Burkley and Alonzo Taylor-Jones combined to run for 126 yards on 23 carries.
Metea Valley’s offense recorded five more first downs than Naperville Central’s offense and threw for 68 more yards behind Lovely’s efficient play.
But after playing a strong first 24 minutes on both sides of the ball against the Redhawks, Luke Brady and Jeremiah Wiggins each recorded second-half touchdown runs as the Redhawks seized momentum.
Like Metea Valley, Wheaton North enters this week at 1-2 after beating Naperville North, 20-7, last week.
The Falcons got TD runs from Steele Graham and Luke Anthony to break a 7-7 tie with the Huskies as they broke their two-game losing streak to start the season.
Wheaton North opens the home portion of its schedule after road dates with Wheaton Warrenville South, Joliet Catholic and Naperville North.
Anthony, a junior quarterback, has tossed four touchdown passes on the year for the Falcons as three have gone in Marcus Gustaveson’s direction.
Metea Valley coach Ben Kleinhans on Wheaton North: “I think, offensively, they’re very diverse. Probably will be the most diverse offense we’ve faced so far. They’re pretty balanced run to pass. They’ve got some playmakers on the outside, a pretty steady quarterback and they run good schemes. They’re pretty similar to us, I think. They’re a no-huddle, spread team. We haven’t faced a lot of those yet in the first three weeks, so that will be different for our defense.”
“Defensively, I think they’re just fundamentally sound. They just do what they do pretty well. I think it’ll be a good test for us, so we’re excited about it. We feel like we match up pretty well. I felt like we’ve gotten better each week, each game we’ve played, we’ve improved and we’re going to have to improve again Friday if we want to have a good outcome.”
