Downers Grove North’s Kevin Jay only played one series last week and it went down to the wire whether he’d play this week.
But the senior stepped in when needed and delivered the throws that helped the No. 17 Trojans get past No. 15 Glenbard West 24-14 Friday night in Downers Grove.
Jay threw touchdown passes to Ray Johnson and Grant Georgas, the latter an 11-yarder with 3:12 left in the third quarter to put Downers North up 17-14. Georgas’ 59-yard TD run at 3:12 of the fourth quarter all but sealed the win for the Trojans (4-0, 2-0 West Suburban Silver).
It capped an eventful week for Jay, known more for his running than throwing. But the lingering injury flipped his script.
“I played the first drive [in a 28-0 win against Hinsdale Central], got kind of twisted up on,” Jay said. “Decided it was best for me to sit the rest of that game.
This week, “I wasn’t feeling the best, but I kept [going] through my recovery and what the trainers told me to do. And it got better over the week. So [Thursday] I made the decision that I was ready to play, and I could play 100%.”
But junior Joey Goodwin started at quarterback and was 5-of-8 passing for 49 yards.
“Joey, our previous quarterback, had a little bit of a hit,” Trojans coach Joe Horeni said. “So we wanted to be smart about it with him in terms of injury.
“KJ [Jay] was hurt last week, so we were going to [go] sparingly with him if we needed to. And then obviously we needed to play him.”
Jay finished 7-of-17 passing for 74 with two interceptions.
He was on the other side of a similar scenario last year when he started for Downers North in place of current Minnesota freshman Owen Lansu against Glenbard West. The Trojans fell behind 28-0 in the first quarter of that game and lost 35-21.
“I didn’t perform very well [then],” Jay said. “… So it was definitely a chip on my shoulder going into this game.”
It helped having Georgas and Zachary Surowiec to share the load. Georgas ran 22 times for 159 yards and Surowiec had nine carries for 41 yards.
“I trust in those guys,” Jay said. “I know if anything happened to me, we could still run the ball how we should with them.”
Glenbard West (2-2, 1-1) scored on two long runs in the first 13 minutes of the game, a 77-yarder down the left sideline by Keyante Johnson and a 76-yarder down the right sideline by quarterback AJ Rayford. That put the Hilltoppers up 14-3, but they were outscored 21-0 the rest of the way.
Rayford was 15-of-20 passing for 157 yards with one interception and ran six times for 84 yards. Keyante Johnson had six carries for 100 yards and six catches for 39 yards.
“I thought we played pretty good defensively,” Hilltoppers coach Chad Hetlet said. “… We just didn’t execute as good as we possibly could on offense. But give credit to Downers, they’ve done a really good job.
“We’re super inexperienced and young. We played with a lot of injuries on defense, so we’ve got a lot of guys who grew up tonight and I’m proud of the way they fought.”