Naperville Central’s defense turns away Lincoln-Way West, takes Southwest Valley Red matchup

NAPERVILLE – For Naperville Central, in the final minutes of their game Friday night against visiting Lincoln-Way West, it all came down to defense.

And the way the Redhawks “D” had played all night, it was only fitting.

Naperville Central fell behind by a touchdown early, then scored twice before halftime to win the Southwest Valley Red matchup 14-7.

The Redhawks improved to 5-0 on the season, 2-0 in conference.

The Redhawks shut down the Warriors on five second-half drives, none bigger than the final one with less than two minutes remaining.

Naperville Central stymied Lincoln-Way West with a fourth-down stop deep in Redhawks territory to secure the victory.

“Our defense played a heck of a game,” Naperville Central junior Paul Peradotti said. “It got a little iffy in the first quarter, but we really brought it together at the end of the first half. We shut them down the whole second half.”

Lincoln-Way West had three sacks in the first 12 minutes, by John Ramos, Brayden Nelson and Nathan Elstner.

That enabled the Warriors to take a 7-0 lead on a 1-yard run by Jimmy Talley Jr., and the entire sequence didn’t sit well with Redhawks senior center Connor Sands.

“The whole year up until now we had only given up one sack in four games,” Sands said. “Starting out in the first quarter (today) we gave up three, and that’s not us.

“At halftime we talked about, ‘Guys, let’s open up.’ We’ve got ballers up front, and we’ve got to be able to hold them (Lincoln-Way West) down. Our quarterback (Sebastian Hayes) is a great player — if we can give him time, he can make plays and he proved that.”

“We knew what to do, we just had to do it to win a football game.”

Lincoln-Way West (3-2, 1-2) didn’t have a sack thereafter.

“It was two of the same (type of) teams playing tonight,” Warriors coach Luke Lokanc said. “We knew it was going to be a game like this — there’s no difference between these two teams. We knew it would be a hard-fought battle.

“They played well, we played well, and that’s what you get in high school football. It’s football — it’s life — you work all week, if you lose, you still wake up and go to work for next week, period. We’re the same team, we lost, and we move on to next week. The lights are still going to come on next Friday.”

Naperville Central scored twice in the second quarter, on a 1-yard run by Hayes, and a 34-yard pass from Hayes to Garrett Nichols.

Then both teams played lights out on defense in the second half, but Lincoln-Way West had a final chance with 2:12 remaining. They drove to the Naperville Central 32-yard line, but a sack by Jack Stanish, then a fourth-down pass breakup by Peradotti stopped the Warriors.

“They had trips formation,” Peradotti said of the defended pass, “and coach (Mike Ulreich) told me if (Noah Wendt) ran a wheel route I had to go with him. I kind of did that naturally, and if I had other things in my arms but bricks I would have (intercepted) that ball.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20240927/prep-football/naperville-central-defense-rises-to-the-occasion-gainst-lincoln-way-west/