Drake Davis and Naperville North have been used to scoring points in bunches this season, sometimes out of necessity.
So being stuck on one touchdown at halftime Friday night against visiting Lake Park was not sitting well.
“When you want to put up 50 points a game, yeah, it’s a little frustrating,” Davis said. “But we worked through it.”
Credit Davis and receiver Ryan Laurenzo for that.
Their 56-yard pass play gave the Huskies life on their final drive and Davis scrambled 9 yards for the winning touchdown with 23.5 seconds left as North won 21-14 in the DuPage Valley.
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Davis, a senior, completed 19 of 28 passes for 270 yards, including an 81-yard TD to Matthew Heinz midway through the first quarter.
Davis also ran 17 times for 82 yards and a pair of TDs, including a 6-yarder in the third quarter. The Huskies (4-0, 3-0) missed the PAT kick after that score, which left them down 14-13 and added to the drama at the end.
Davis was intercepted to end North’s next-to-last drive and the Huskies needed to burn all three of their timeouts on defense. They forced a three-and-out by Lake Park (2-2, 2-1) and took over at their own 18 with 2:24 left.
On third-and-8 from the 20, Davis heaved the ball far down the right sideline and Laurenzo pulled it in for a first down at the Lancers’ 24.
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“It was coming down to the wire,” Davis said. “I just tossed it up. I trust my wideouts a lot. The line was blocking great. Laurenzo just went up and made a great play.”
“I knew if he threw it up there, I would go get it,” said Laurenzo, who had five catches for 100 yards.
Davis ran for 15 yards on the next play, then was stopped for no gain before his winning TD.
“It was a rollout right,” he said. “Nothing was open, time was running out, I had to make a play. The left side was wide open and I decided to run for it.”
“We felt if we could ever just get one stop in there, Drake’s finally going to punch one in,” North coach Sean Drendel said. “If you’re a defender, (you know) his eyes are always looking to throw the football. That’s where his feet get super dangerous.”
The Huskies looked more multidimensional Friday after winning three straight slugfests by an average score of 51-37. That included their epic comeback from a 42-0 deficit in Week 1 against Edwardsville.
North picked off Lake Park’s Jackson Behles three times before halftime, including Jared Saad’s interception in the end zone in the second quarter.
“We bent a lot,” said Drendel, whose team gave up 318 yards. “But we found a way to make some plays and get some turnovers in the first half. And we did enough in the second half to stay in the game.”
Davis took care of the rest, and the Huskies are still unbeaten.
“We got a little horseshoe going right now and we’ll take every chance we can get with it,” Drendel said.
Twitter @mikeclarkpreps
