Vikings set for 1st big test

Through six games, all victories, Geneva football coach Rob Wicinski acknowledges his Vikings “absolutely” have yet to prove their worth.

While coaches are guarded by nature, in this case, it’s easy to understand Wicinski’s wait-and-see outlook.

So far, the Vikings have played only one team with a winning record, 4-2 Glenbard South, and posted a 17-0 victory.

Still coming are Friday’s showdown with Western Sun Conference power Rochelle and rivalry games against Kaneland and chief nemesis Batavia.

The comfortable early-season schedule was favorable considering Geneva had to break in Mike Mayszak, a first-year varsity quarterback. Wicinski said it typically takes much of the regular season for a new quarterback to gain the necessary polish.

“He’s done more than I could’ve asked,” Wicinski said. “He’s been able to grasp the offense and been able to take us to further places than I was expecting at this point and time.”

Defensively, Wicinski considered last year’s unit the best he has coached, but this year’s defense is in the same neighborhood. Wicinski actually is higher on this year’s defensive line, and the secondary is about a toss-up, he said.

Geneva’s defense doesn’t have much to wonder about leading up to the Rochelle game. Coach Kevin Crandall’s Hubs do not deviate from their script, which mostly involves chewing up heaping chunks of clock and yardage with their double Wing-T offense.

A week ago, Friday’s game figured to pit a pair of unbeatens against each other. But Rochelle was upset by Sycamore last week, 9-7.

That result did little to ease Wicinski’s anxiety – not so much because Rochelle will be angry, but because of the Hubs’ rare skids under Crandall.

“He’s won 80 percent of his games, or [84 percent], something goofy like that,” Wicinski said. “The guy has hardly ever, if at all, lost two games in a row. ... That’s a concern. It just doesn’t happen to them.”

It might happen Friday. So far, the Vikings have looked like conference championship material. Now, they have their first true chance to prove it.

“We set goals at the beginning of the year, and we’ve only reached one, to get in the playoffs,” Wicinski said. “Now we want a conference championship, and Rochelle is the team to beat.”

Narrowing it down: St. Charles North baseball standout Jake Thornton has trimmed his college list to three.

Thornton, a senior center fielder, is down to the University of Illinois, Illinois State and the University of Alabama-Birmingham from a pool of eight Division I scholarship offers, according to his father, Jim.

– Jay Schwab is sports editor of the Kane County Chronicle. He can be reached at 630-845-5382 or jschwab@kcchronicle.com.