St. Charles North overcomes its mistakes

St. Charles North made some mistakes on Friday. There were three interceptions, a fumble and one very bad snap that netted over 20 negative yards.

And the defense had some lapses too, especially as McHenry's passing offense got into gear.

But those miscues were far overshadowed by two things: the number of good plays turned in by a team that improved as the game went on and, most importantly, the 26-12 winning final score.

"It was a little sloppy with some mental mistakes," St. Charles coach Mark Gould said. "But we were able to make some big plays."

The North Stars (1-1) never trailed in the game. They led 13-6 in a first half where field position was key - and St. Charles North had the edge in that category. Most of the plays in the half were run in McHenry's defensive half.

Importantly, the North Stars turned that territorial advantage into scoreboard points. Kyle Harmon gave St. Charles North its first lead of the season when he caught a 3-yard pass from quarterback Nick Neari 4 minutes into the game.

"It's a great feeling to be able to step up and go into the first game of conference 1-1," Harmon said. McHenry tied the game for the only time when Ryan Michel hit Nico DeLorenzo for a 15-yard pass play into the end zone.

Neari gave the North Stars the lead for good when he went over from 1 yard with 3 minutes left in the first half and the visitors had a 13-7 lead at halftime.

The actual number of plays each team ran in the third quarter was very similar. But it seemed in watching the game that the North Stars had the ball most of the quarter.

"We knew we had to come out here and believe we could get it done and that's what we did - we took it to them," Harmon said.

St. Charles North also scored the only points of the quarter on another Neari 1-yard plunge.

"It was good we were able to run the ball in the second half and take some time off the clock," Gould said.

Michel hit Mike Canevello from 25 yards to reduce the deficit to 20-12. But Eric Battle got outside and ran in from 26 yards with 3:53 left to put McHenry too far behind for a late comeback.

"We watched a lot of film to see what they liked to do," St. Charles North defensive back Ben Dvorak said. "We wanted to be able to play a chess game with them and counter whatever they wanted to do."

Dvorak said the sting of the North Stars' season-opening loss to Cary-Grove stayed with the team all week.

"In practice, we worked hard," he said. "We wanted to win because we felt we shouldn't have lost last week."