Palatine’s football team finally turned into a team of road warriors Friday night – at Evanston’s expense.
Playing their third consecutive game away from home to start the 2021 season, the previously winless Pirates couldn’t do anything wrong and humbled the hosts 43-0 at Lazier Field. It was the worst home defeat for the Wildkits since a 52-7 thumping at the hands of Maine South back in 2016, and their worst shutout margin at home in a loss since a 49-0 blanking by New Trier in 2007.
Palatine junior quarterback Grant Dersnah passed for two touchdowns and ran for another, and sophomore running back Dom Ball rushed 20 times for 126 yards, including a 9-yard TD run, for the winners.
Palatine, which suffered a shutout loss in its season opener at St. Charles North, improved to 1-2 by piling up 184 yards rushing and 231 passing against a beleaguered Evanston Township High School defense.
ETHS mustered only 92 total yards of offense, and just five first downs. Junior quarterback Dylan Groff was sacked five times despite the fact that the Wildkits reshuffled their offensive line following a seven-sack debacle the previous week against Libertyville.
Evanston fell to 1-2 with its second straight lopsided home loss and will be on the road next Friday against another Mid-Suburban League opponent, Palatine Fremd.
“This type of loss hasn’t happened to us in a long time. We didn’t get the job done tonight, and it’s disappointing,” said Wildkit head coach Mike Burzawa. “The game of football comes down to stopping the run and running the football, and we didn’t do either one tonight. Now we need to stick together, come back and find a way to get to 2-2 against Fremd.
“We will get stronger. We will get better. We will figure this out.”
Palatine built a 27-0 halftime lead by scoring on every possession in the first two quarters. Ball’s 9-yard run accounted for the only scoring in the first quarter, but in the second period the visitors broke loose as Dersnah (14-of-21, 218 yards) threw TD passes to Mitch Larkin (4 yards) and Jacob Bostick (40 yards) and Bobby Widlowski added a 1-yard TD plunge.