Football: Plainfield East reaches new heights with victory

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Updated: November 15, 2011 8:51AM

Plainfield East won its first Homecoming game and reached the two-win plateau for the first time in its brief three-year history with a 40-14 victory over Romeoville on Friday night.

The Bengals (2-4) had three first-half turnovers but never lost control of the game after jumping out to a 13-0 edge over the Spartans (1-5).

East got on the board on its opening drive, needing only three plays to find pay dirt when quarterback Robert Zamora found wide receiver Jawan Straughter for a 16-yard scoring pass.

The Romeoville defense thought it had created a turnover on East’s next possession when the Bengals coughed up the football on their own 43. But the loose ball squirted out of the hands of the Spartans defender and Plainfield East recovered to retain possession.

On the next play, Bengals tailback Shekeal Taylor ran off guard, broke a tackle and then exploded down the sidelines, racing in for a 57-yard touchdown that pushed East up by two scores and kept the momentum with the home team.

Romeoville got an 85-yard interception return from Perez Ford late in the second quarter to cut the lead to 13-6 but East answered with another late drive and pushed the margin back to 13 points at the intermission.

The second half was all Plainfield East as the hosts ran the lead to 40-6 before a late Romeoville score.

“This was the next step for us,” East coach Mike Romeli said. “We won a Homecoming game and we got to two wins for the very first time. Our guys and coaching staff, though, are more hungry than that. We take things one game at a time and we know that we have to focus on Plainfield Central next Saturday afternoon. We want to win more than two games and our guys are confident in our ability to do just that.”

Romeoville coach Jeff Kuna was disappointed with the final score but not the effort of his players.

“Our defense is a risk-taking defense,” Kuna said. “We got three takeaways in the first half and if the wet ball hadn’t squirted away from us we could have had four and made it a much closer game at the half.

“Our Week 10 dream is gone but I know that our kids are still excited to go out there in these last three weeks and work hard to make some good things happen for us.”