No. 6 Naperville Central (7-1, 6-1 DuPage Valley) @ Lake Park (4-4, 4-3 DuPage Valley), 7:30 p.m.
Last week: Naperville Central beat Wheaton North, 34-14; Lake Park won at Neuqua Valley, 28-21
Storyline: The program’s first outright DuPage Valley Conference title since 2001 is on the line Friday night as Naperville Central head to Roselle to face Lake Park.
Winners of four straight games following their only loss, a 15-14 loss at Waubonsie Valley in Week 4, the Redhawks’ offense will look to continue to roll through the air.
Quarterback Conor Joyce completed 14 of his 17 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns in Naperville Central’s 34-14 victory over Wheaton North last week.
Joyce found Matt Lehmann – who had 224 total yards – for 199 receiving yards, including a 75-yard TD on the first drive of the second half as the Redhawks raced out to a 31-0 lead over the Falcons.
Naperville Central beat Wheaton North despite being outgained, 396-325, in total yards.
Meanwhile, the Lancers can get postseason eligible with a victory after winning five games in 2014 but missing out on the postseason.
Lake Park secured a needed victory at Neuqua Valley last week by churning out 354 yards on the ground.
Lancers’ quarterback Jaron Fields only threw for 47 yards but he ran for 98 yards and two touchdowns on 10 carries while Nate Faruzzi ran for 126 yards and Melvin Smiley added 94 rushing yards.
Fields, Faruzzi and Smiley all scored rushing TDs for Lake Park against the Wildcats.
Naperville Central coach Mike Stine on Lake Park: “They have some nice weapons. Their quarterback (Fields) is a dual-threat guy and they got some guys that can make some plays on offense. They can spread the field. They can play power. They’ll do one or the other. We’ll be prepared for both.
“Defensively, the strength of their defense is their four guys up front. (Mike Panasiuk) will be there (as one of the best defensive lineman we’ve seen). The Wheaton South kid (Solomon Jackson) is pretty good, too. I’d put him in that same category. The Wheaton South kid is more athletic, but the Lake Park kids are good. (Panasiuk) is getting a lot of fanfare and probably rightfully so, but as I told our offensive line – we’ve got some guys on our offensive line that we think are pretty good, too. So it’ll be a good matchup.
“Their strength, they feel, is their defensive line. We feel our offensive line’s pretty good. We’re not afraid to match up against them and we’ll see. (Panasiuk) is a good player. Is he the best (we’ve seen all year)? I don’t know that. We haven’t played him yet.
“We got to be ready to take on a team that has to win to make it into the playoffs and we know that. We going to go up and play in their place, so we know it’s a huge challenge. But every week that we’ve gone out this year has been a huge challenge. Our goal’s always we got to go 1-0.
“It’ll be exciting. It should be a good atmosphere and it’ll be fun.”
