Daniel Escaro knew that it was his moment.

With St. Charles North up by three and Geneva needing a big play with 3:06 left in the game, the senior defensive back saw a deep pass that he knew he got a bead on.

And on a night he was crowned the North Stars’ homecoming king, he knew he needed to secure the win with an interception.

“I was so scared,” Escaro said. “I bobbled it at first, but once I had it I was just thinking about going down the field. I had no thoughts in my head, just running on shear willpower.”

Escaro’s interception did just that, as the North Stars ran out the clock to secure a 10-7 victory over the Vikings to open DuKane Conference play.

“That’s DuKane football for you,” North Stars coach Rob Pomazak said. “You don’t know how you’re going to win, so you’ve got to be ready for anything. But I’m proud of our guys for grinding.”

The North Stars took the lead on their first drive of the second half. After extending the drive with a 36-yard pass to senior wideout Keaton Reinke (11 catches for 126 yards), senior quarterback JT Padron (16 of 22 for 182 yards) found EJ Mondesir from 13 yards out to give them the 10-7 advantage.

And after North (3-0, 1-0 DuKane) was held out of the end zone for the first half, with their only score being a 32-yard field goal by Lucas Tenbrock in the first quarter, Pomazak knew that if they could get that score on the first drive, his team would be ready to fight the whole way.

“I told them we had to go out, put one in the end zone to take the lead, and then we’re going to fight like heck to keep it and do whatever it takes,” he said. “We tell our kids about doing what it takes. We don’t know how long it’s going to go, but we’re going to go as hard as we can for as long as we can.”

After taking the lead, the majority of the North Stars’ snaps went to senior tailback Carsen Durante. The senior finished the game with 23 carries for 99 yards, including four yards on a third-and-four to secure the game.

“My coach told me at the end of the game that I was going to get the ball a lot and I just told him that I was ready,” Durante said. “Our QB had the perfect message for me, the O-line blocked so well, and we just finished out the game.

Geneva (1-2, 0-1) established the run game from the get-go in the contest. The Vikings took 7:11 off the clock in their opening drive, which was finished by a six-yard rushing touchdown by junior Nelson Wendell (20 carries for 96 yards, TD).

By the end of the first half, they had accumulated 145 yards on the ground. And Vikings coach Boone Thorgesen said it couldn’t have gone better for them.

“Wendell’s a tough kid,” he said. “We wanted to establish the run and we did for most of the game. Credit to North, they’re tough and put a lot of pressure on us on offense and defense. But I’m super proud of these kids. We’re going to be just fine.”

Thorgesen said he was proud of the bounce-back performance from his defense after giving up 35 points to Oswego just a week ago. The Vikings kept the North Stars out of the end zone with a red-zone stop to end the first half and forced a fumble on the first play of the second half.

“The defensive coaches had a fantastic game plan, and our kids have a lot of pride,” Thorgesen said. “We felt we didn’t live up to our standard last week and they came back and really showed what type of pride we have and team we want to be.”