A win is a win.

It wasn’t always pretty, but the Ramblers ousted the Griffins of Lincoln Way East by the score of 3-0 in front of a raucous crowd in Wilmette on Saturday.

The cold fall air made its way into Sachs Stadium as it was met with a clash of two top ranked teams in the state of Illinois battling to advance to the semi finals. A 32 yard field goal by Junior Mike Baker in the second quarter was all the Ramblers needed to get past the Griffins.

Despite the low scoring affair, the game was filled with excitement from the beginning to the end as the final outcome of the game was in question until the final minute of play.

The Ramblers defense had one of their best performances of the season thus far in the win. Griffin’s quarterback Chase Arthur was forced out of the pocket a total of 8 times to run with the ball as the Ramblers found themselves in the backfield nearly every Griffin’s passing play. The Ramblers only allowed a total of 4 completions in the air out of 13 attempts by the Griffins for a total of only 52 yards. The Griffins were left 0-8 on third down conversions and 0-3 on fourth down.

Rambler defensive lineman Brooks Bahr credited much of the defensive success to the week of practice telling The Record North Shore, “At practice this week we were emphasizing how much of a threat their offense was. Their wide receivers are big threats. We knew we had to get pressure on their quarterback. We couldn’t let him make easy passes.”

Rambler coach Holecek, also impressed with the effort, said to The Record North Shore, “Mike Williams had a great day; James Kreutz was a disruptive force as usual; and Sam Rushin had another great game.”

Despite only scoring 3 points the Rambler offense looked smooth at times. The junior quarterback Jake Stearney passed for a total of 175 yards completing 19 of 28 attempts on the day. Senior James Kreutz also left his mark on the offense, rushing for an important 33 yard run to set up the field goal for the Ramblers in the second quarter.

The game came down to a Rambler 4th down as Jake Stearney faked the punt and completed a 29 yard pass to Parker to seal the game for the Ramblers in the waning moments of the game.

Following the win the Rambler moved onto 12-0 on the season. They will take on the Porters of Lockport Township High School next week in the semi final game in Wilmette.

Kickoff is slated for 1:00pm on Saturday, November 20.