Wheaton Academy passes league test

In its attempts to stop Wheaton Academy from running the football Saturday night, Luther South routinely put eight or sometimes nine players at the line of scrimmage -- daring the Warriors to pass the ball.

Wheaton Academy took the dare and succeeded with it, earning a 36-20 Private School League opener at Wheaton College's McCully Field.

"This feels pretty good, but our coach (Ben Wilson) told us this next week of practice is going to be the toughest yet," Wheaton Academy receiver Anthony Ritchie said. "We're ready to go back to work."

But by game's end the Warriors were holding on for dear life. Luther South (0-3, 0-1) gained massive second-half yardage and outgained the Warriors 337-190 for the contest.

"The truth be told, not having varsity experience, is something that shows up in the wins, like tonight and shows up in the losses, like last week. We just don't know how to respond in certain situations," Wilson said.

The Warriors are 2-1, 1-0 in the PSL and rebounded nicely from their 50-7 Week 2 defeat at Genoa-Kingston.

While there are dangerous teams as the season progresses, Wheaton Academy has had a successful first-third of its first season of varsity football since reinstating the program.

"We're going to kept the kids going," Wilson said. "They're going to learn a lot as we keep going."

One of the keys was the passing combination of quarterback Brian Pell and Ritchie. The pair hooked up five times and accounted for 124 of the Warriors' 190 passing yards.

"We did a lot of work in the off-season, the two of us and Jake Jones, running a lot of routes," Pell said. "We talked about a number of different coverages, so we have a pretty good communication between us."

The last of those completions turned into a 35-yard touchdown pass when Ricthie got behind Luther South's drawn-in defense. The game was the best the quarterback-receiver combo have had this year.

"We had a couple of missed communications the first two games," Ritchie said. "(Luther South) was playing something like a 6-3 defense with their linebackers a couple of feet off the ball. We were just dumping the ball. It wasn't anything special. But it worked with the kind of defense they were playing."

Jones caught a pair of passes, but his influence on the game was in grabbing 2 of 4 Wheaton Academy interceptions.