O-Line Allows JCA To Wing It

The choice between running the deceptive mode of the double-wing offense or the power style of the Wing-T would be a simple one for Joliet Catholic Academy offensive lineman Carson Smith.

Every. Single. Time.

“I get to pull, put on some hits and be physical,” said Smith, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound left guard and an offseason convert from the defensive side of the ball. “So I really like it when we run our power.”

Power was the knockout punch Saturday night for JCA at Benedictine University. Rushing for 340 yards on 55 carries, the Hilltoppers had 16 of their 26 first downs in effectively grinding out a 21-point second half en route to a 35-0 East Suburban Catholic Conference victory over host Benet.

With Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald looking on, junior wingback Ty Isaac totaled 131 yards on 20 rushes, caught a pair of passes for 28 yards and scored three touchdowns to pace JCA (5-0, 4-0). Senior wingback Malin Jones, Fitzgerald’s recruit, gained 95 yards on 15 carries and scored twice.

On top of that, junior fullback Tyler Reitz added 96 yards on 11 carries, junior quarterback Craig Slowik threw for 84 yards — including a 6-yard TD to fellow Shorewood native Isaac — and junior tight end Isaac Grashoff contributed 2 catches for 56 yards. He also buried each of his five extra-point kicks.

Reitz ended up with the longest run of the game for JCA with a 36-yarder and went into double digits at 12 and 10 yards. Isaac had five runs of 18, 15, 14, 11 and 10 yards and Jones went 14 and 12. That meant the majority of the Hilltoppers’ rushing yardage came in classic, power-piston-chugging action.

“It was kind of a throwback night,” JCA coach Dan Sharp said. “This is where I went to college, and it’s like we were back in the 1970s with our offense. But we’ve had so many breakaway runs this year that I think it’s a very positive thing our backs got in some work by getting those tough yards.”

“We’re not used to the score being 14-0 at halftime,” said Jones, who had 41 yards on eight carries in that first half. “We made a lot of adjustments in the second half, roared out of the gate, and it was some old-fashioned, smash-mouth Joliet Catholic football. We just took their morale away.”

A nine-play, 66-yard scoring drive to start the second half and a nine-play, 74-yard drive to close out the third quarter paved the path to a 28-0 lead. Jones used two stiff-arms on a 14-yard sweep into the left corner of the end zone at 7:29 and then parlayed a double handoff into another TD at 2:11.

Meanwhile, the JCA defense limited Benet to seven yards rushing on 17 carries and 143 yards overall on 39 plays. The Hillmen notched four sacks and three tackles for loss in their second shutout of the season.

“We put a lot of pressure on the quarterback,” said senior defensive tackle Austin Bolton, who was a part of two tackles for loss and a sack. “It’s really fun, and it was nice in the second half because it was smash-mouth football by our offense. That’s always fun to watch.”

All the Redwings’ defense could do was watch as Isaac snared a 6-yard play-action pass from Slowik for a 7-0 lead with 7:27 left in the first quarter. He added a 1-yard TD plunge 1:31 before halftime and iced the win with a 4-yard TD burst a mere 21 seconds into the fourth.

Time after time after time.

“We thoroughly enjoyed this,” said Isaac, JCA’s leading rusher with 878 yards on 75 carries. “We’re not going to score 70-yard TDs every time. I like us playing it tough and pounding the ball in there. It shows people that we have a different dynamic.”

Necessity was the mother of invention for JCA in that department. With Benet attempting to mimic the Hillmen cadence during motion, the result was four false-start penalties. Sharp switched his offense from the double-wing to the Wing-T and, well, kaboom.

“We got right into it, we started moving the ball and we were good from there,” Smith said of an offensive line led by senior center Pat Kripp, senior tackle Jake Jankowski, sophomore tackle J.B. Butler and senior guard Mike Giaudrone. “We figured out who we had to block and we just kept at it.”