The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 55

Illini late The University of Illinois-San Diego State football game was not completed at press time. The Illini led 35-13 after three quarters. Check Monday's Pantaqraph for coveraae. Sport Sunday, September 10, 2000 The Pantagraph www.pantagraph.com n. 0mm r' Hi The PanlagraphMAUREEN O'CONNOR Washington (Mo.) running back Latham Bell ran into a host of Illinois Wesleyan defenders during the second quarter Saturday at IWU Stadium.

IWUgets Titan effort on defense c4 11 By JIM BENSON Pantagraph staff When they first ran on the field, senior defensive tackle Jeff Heinzl admitted "it was scary" for Illinois Wesleyan's defense. The way the Titans responded on that first series and every series after- upwards turned out to be a WASHINGTON 0 downright frightening experi- WESLEYAN 24 ence for Washington For The Pantagraph ball with the Northern Illinois Huskies in the first half Saturday at DeKalb. Members of the Illinois State football team (white jerseys) went after a loose "Northern Illinois captured the 52-0 victory. Cornerback Whitfield has big day against Redbirds IWU forced six turnovers and limited the Bears to 142 yards of total offense. Joel Castillo threw a pair of touchdown passes to Shawn Emerson as the Titans rolled to an impressive season-opening 24-0 victory against Washington Division I-A team that figured to serve as an intriguing barometer for the state of the nationally ranked I-AA ISU program, the Redbirds simply failed.

ISU (1-1) was shut out for the first time since a 13-0 loss in 1997 to Youngstown State, which at the time was ranked No. 1 in I-AA. Northern (1-1) scored its most points since 1995 before the ninth largest crowd in Huskie Stadium history. Whitfield returned Redbird quarterback Kevin Glenn's first pass for a 30-yard touchdown, and ISU found itself buried in a 31-0 crater with 10:59 left in the second quarter. Glenn, who was intercepted twice in six games last season, tossed four first-half interceptions.

The Redbirds did not secure their initial first down until the 10:07 mark of the second quarter. "They came out and played a good game, and we didn't execute on offense," said Glenn, who completed 9 of 21 passes for 111 yards. "We came up here intent on giving them a good game and it didn't work out that way." Down 7-0, ISU took over at the Huskie 28-yard line after a 28-yard Ryan Szokola punt return. Whitfield picked off Glenn on the next play. See ISU, back page By RANDY REINHARDT Pantagraph staff DEKALB For the Illinois State football team's first trip here since 1992, Northern Illinois cornerback Demerist Whitfield put out the welcome mat.

Whitfield, however, yanked that mat out from under the Redbirds with three interceptions and a blocked punt in the game's first 19 minutes. The shock of Whitfield's rapid-fire heroics never wore off for the Redbirds as ISU suffered a humbling 52-0 defeat Saturday before a Huskie Stadium crowd of 24,682. "Where I'm loU from that's an N. ILLINOIS 52 old-fashioned butt kicking," said ISU coach Denver Johnson. "They were big, physical and had some talent, but I'm surprised we didn't play better than we did." "No way in the world did I expect that," Northern coach Joe Novak said.

"I'd have taken 7-6. That (ISU) is a good football team." In a matchup against a lowerjier before an estimated crowd of 3,000 at IWU Stadium. "We knew that the game would be won or lost on the line. We came out right away and smacked them and smacked them hard," said Heinzl. "We were even with them the first quarter.

After that they started backing off a little bit, and we kept pounding them." A blocked punt gave Washington the ball at IWU's 11-yard line early in the first quarter. Right away, the defense counted on to be the strength of this IWU "We knew that the game would be won or lost on the line. We came out right away and smacked them and smacked them hard." IWU defensive tackle Jeff Heinzl Princeton stops Central 9 Sift By DOUGLAS HAMM Pantagraph staff the brother of Metamora coach Pat Ryan. "He's just a workhorse. Those things don't happen if the guys up front aren't blocking, but he ran over a few people, too.

I wouldn't want to have to tackle that dude. "Great players make great individual plays, and Cory ran his butt off. Matt Wright made a great catch, and Shane made a great throw." After Wright's TD catch, Central Catholic (2-1) marched Saturday night's nonconference game at Hancock Stadium offered a little bit of everything for football fans: offensive fireworks, blocked field goals, last-minute heroics and last-second heartbreak. Mostly, it featured the sturdy legs of Princeton High 27 26 School senior fullback Cory Scott. Scott, a powerful 6-foot-l, 185-pounder, rushed PRINCETON for 336 yards and three touchdowns on 32 pun- CENTRAL ishing carries to power Princeton to a 27-26 vie- from its own 20 to the Princeton 18, but Brian Beall's 35-yard field goal try with 3 seconds left was wide left.

"It didn't look like (Beall) caught it real team would be tested. "That's our pride and joy, the way we're able to dig in on the goal line and stick them," said sophomore cornerback Kevin Kaplan. Washington (1-1) was stopped on three plays and forced into a 27-yard field goal attempt. Kevin Cantzler missed left, and the IWU defense bounced off the field high-fiving each other. message was sent.

IWU won its fifth straight opener with its first shutout since the 1997 season finale against Elmhurst. Washington, which returned 14 starters from last year's NCAA Division III playoff squad, was shut out on the road for the first time since 1987. "That's probably one of the best defensive performance I've seen in the last five or six years," said IWU coach Norm Eash. "I thought our kids played defense today like it was the (season's final) game. They made very few mistakes.

We were very physical with them." All of IWU's scoring came after Washington turnovers. Craig Kastning intercepted Washington quarterback Greg Lake on the first play of the second quarter. IWU's offense immediately went for the big play. Castillo delivered a perfect pass to See IWU, Page F3 good," Moews said. "That's in his range, but it's tough to tory over Central Catholic.

"I know one thing (Scott) runs hard," said Central put a kid in that situation. Catholic coach Bobby Moews. "We've got a couple of guys right now that have tracks on them because he ran right over them. He had two long touchdown runs and both times he ran over one of our kids and never broke his stride. We just couldn't stop him." Scott scored on runs of 1, 60 and 35 yards, and he had two other bursts that went for 55 and 54 yards.

Scott ran for 244 yards in the second half, including a 54-yard scamper late in the game that led to quarterback Shane Jones' game-winning 17-yard TD pass to Matt Wright with 50 seconds remaining. "I think Scott is an all-state quality player," said Princeton coach Joe Ryan, a former Eureka coach and "We had a second down play down there and think we have a good play called, and somebody steps on the quarterback's (Andy Newbold) foot. That's kind of how the night went for us. Then you have to decide do we risk a sack and get taken out of field goal range, and I just said we had to go for the field goal." Scott's heroics overshadowed a great performance by Central Catholic junior running back Brian Segobiano. Segobiano rushed for 244 yards on 22 carries, including scoring runs of 68, 63 and 3 yards.

See CENTRAL, back page Irish nipped Notre Dame's Shane Walton (42) and B.J. Scott (93) sat dejectedly on the field as members of the Nebraska football team celebrated their 27-24 overtime victory Saturday at South Bend, Ind. See story, Page F3. What will fate be of Intercity football event? I Bryan Blood worth Lefty's Corner the end of the game," said Moews, whose team earned a 28-12 victory over the Pioneers. "It was hard to keep them mentally prepared when they didn't know for sure what time the game was going to start.

"Both teams were focused in the first half, but both teams played terrible in the second half. There were a lot of mistakes on both sides because the kids were mentally drained by the end of the game and they should have been." Smid and Moews said a more definite starting time needs to be in place for their game. "If we had a set starting time, it would be much easier," Moews continued. "It's hard to keep kids excited that long from the end of school until game time." Smid said he "liked the fact that all the Intercity teams were involved, but I just don't like it on Friday night. If you're going to play three games in a night, somebody is going to have to be playing after midnight." "If we can only get Hancock Stadium on Friday, then I think we should go with tradition (BHS vs.

NCHS and Central vs. High)," Smid continued. "But if we can get the stadium on Saturday, let's go ahead and play three and bring West into it." Playing a tripleheader on Saturday would be the ideal solution. Officials could start the first game early enough to play host to the event. A letter was sent by ISU officials last week to the athletics directors stating that "scheduling three games in one weekend, particularly Labor Day weekend, will continue to be a challenge.

"We (ISU) will continue to open our season at home on Thursday when possible and the idea of playing (Intercity) games on Friday, as well as Saturday, is not attractive." Intercity schools paid ISU $6,500 last year to cover rent, ticket-takers, police, parking attendants, concession workers, ushers, medical personnel, civil service workers, cleanup crews and maintenance people. "Nothing has been done about next year," said Woods. "We'll meet as a group next week and discuss this year's event. "Then, we'll need to talk with ISU, look at our revenue figures and expenditures, and go from there. Of course, it will take ISU's cooperation because there isn't a facility in town large enough to seat the kind of crowd we have throughout the night.

"We might just have to go back to home-and-home dates each year." That would be a shame. Bryan Bloodworth can be reached via e-mail at sportsfopantagraph.com It will be interesting to see what the Twin Cities high school athletic directors decide concerning the annual Intercity football doubleheader triple-header next year. This year, for the first time in history, the event went from two games to three games in a single night to include Normal West in the mix. The Wildcats faced Big 12 West Conference foe Decatur Eisenhower followed by the traditional Big 12 West matchup between Normal Community and Bloomington, and finally the Corn Belt Conference showdown between University High and Central Catholic. The original schedule called for the respective games to begin at 4, 6 and 8, which was the ultimate in wishful thinking.

Even the most casual of football fans knows a game is rarely played in two hours, let alone two games back-to-back in four hours. The schedule was altered to start times of 4, 6:30 and 9, which was a little more reasonable but still doubtful. The West game started on time, but it was 7 before NCHS and BHS took the field and closer to 10 o'clock before the High-Central game kicked off. The poor Pioneers and Saints didn't walk off the field until 29 minutes after midnight. That, my friends, is not fair to the play- allow the last game to have a set starting time of 8 o'clock.

"I hope we can continue the tripleheader, but only if we can play in the first game," said West coach Jim Baker. "I wouldn't want to be in Bobby's and Dirk's shoes, not knowing what time their game is going to start. "That is asking an awful lot of those kids to go to school all day, then sit around for five or six hours waiting for their game to start. "The benefit for everyone, if we are going to continue the tripleheader format, would be to start it earlier and that would mean a Saturday situation." Easier said than done. Unfortunately, the Intercity athletics directors are at the mercy of Illinois State as to the availability of Hancock Stadium.

Saturday dates are not an option every year because ISU could have a home game or, because the Intercity event always falls on Labor Day weekend, ISU can't get enough personnel to staff the games. The Intercity athletics directors wanted to play the tripleheader on Saturday this year, but ISU officials didn't feel they would be able to provide the staff to open the stadium and do all the tasks necessary to hold the event. Furthermore, the Intercity athletics directors aren't quite sure if ISU wants to ers, coaches, parents, fans, cheerleaders, band members, from High or Central Catholic. "Kids playing that late is not good and we didn't pretend it was," admitted West's Gary Woods, the dean of the Intercity athletics directors. While neither High coach Dirk Smid nor Central Catholic coach Bobby Moews were necessarily strong in voicing their opinion about the tripleheader format, both understandably admitted it was a "very, very long day" "Some of these kids started class at 7 in the morning, then were starting a football game at 10 at night," said Smid.

"As long as sports is a part of the educational process, I don't think we can continue to do this to our young people." Moews agreed. "All the kids were mentally fatigued by.