Wheaton Warrenville South: September 2008 Archives

Surprisingly, Naperville Central didn't tumble out of the Sun-Times top 25, but then again that's also probably a sign of how highly Wheaton Warrenville South is regarded. Within this piece, Steve Tucker writes of this week's crosstown at North Central College: This will be the first in a series of big tests for the reigning Class 8A state champions. Could Nick Mlady be the school's second consecutive Sun-Times Player of the Year?

With that in mind, what's your early crosstown prediction? And who's your first-half MVP?

Well, Naperville Central certainly got what it wanted, Wheaton Warrenville South coming into Memorial Stadium with its 23-game DuPage Valley Conference and 31-game regular-season winning streaks intact.

Four DuPage Valley Conference teams are spotlighted in the latest Chicago Sun-Times poll and those heavyweight programs will be colliding on Friday night. No. 3 Naperville North hosts No. 23 Glenbard North, while No. 4 Wheaton Warrenville South brings its 31-game regular season winning streak to No. 16 Naperville Central.

What would your ballot look like?

The East Suburban Catholic Conference will wake up Friday morning with three undefeated teams - Marist, St. Patrick and Notre Dame. And with St. Patrick traveling to Notre Dame a few hours later, that grouping won't last very long.

Benet and Joliet Catholic are 1-0 in conference, but each lost its first two games. And of the five teams that lost its ESCC opener last week, four started the season 2-0. As Benet coach Gary Goforth said on Thursday: "Who knows?"

"This could be a topsy-turvy year in the conference for all we know," Goforth said.

Already this season Wheaton Warrenville South hammered Joliet Catholic, St. Joseph snapped a 45-game losing streak that stretched across five seasons and 3-0 Marist could be off to its best start since 1986.

With 10 starters returning from a 10-3 team that advanced to the Class 7A semifinals last season, Carmel was supposed to be an early ESCC frontrunner, but the Corsairs (2-1, 0-1) stumbled in the rain last week against an improved Marist team. That's how it's gone so far in an unpredictable ESCC.

Forget what we thought we knew - what will the ESCC look like by the end of Friday night and at the beginning of November?

For Naperville Central, this is about perception versus reality on two fronts - what its DuPage Valley Conference schedule looks like on paper, and how its spread offense controls the ball.