PREVIEW OF THE YORKVILLE FOXES

If you look at this year's history this one should be easy to pick. Yorkville has a routine - win one, lose one, win one, lose one, win one, and therefore this week it's lose one. The Knights on the other hand will be looking for their 20th win in a row.

Last year when the teams meet it was a one sided affair. It took Kaneland just 2 ½ minutes for their first score, 5 ½ minutes for their second score and 9 ½ minutes for their third TD and so on. It was 42-0 by halftime and Knights had accumulated 284 yards to the Foxes 27 at intermission.

However, this year's Foxes are much better than last years team. Their two loses this year has been to Marmion Academy a top 25 team in a game the Foxes lead at halftime and to undefeated Herscher who needed a last second field goal to beat them.

The Foxes are rich in running backs, lead by #20 5-foot-3 senior Derrick King.

"He may be 5-3, but he has the heart of someone much bigger," says Yorkville coach Bob Williams. "He's got such great desire to succeed.

"Every time they write an article in the paper, it says 'little' or 'tiny'", says King. " I don't really mind it. I have had it (small kid label) since kindergarten."

Averaging an astounding 12 yards per carry, the 150-pound King has piled up 663 yards already on 55 rushes and like last week's opponent he likes the end zone with 13 TD's. He compares to Kaneland's own Kyle Schrader who has 693 yards on 88 carries.

He also returns punts averaging 13 yards.

In addition to King, the Foxes rely heavily on the arm of southpaw quarterback #9 Tim Zaspal who is completing over 50% of his passes.

Zaspal's favorite target is #7 6-4 senior Matt Brown. Junior fullback Tim Hanson (#22) gets his share of carries too as he had 9 rushes for 91 yards and 2 receptions last week against Westmont.

The Yorkville defense is also solid, as they have given up only 64 points in 5 games, or just less than 13 points a game. Compared to Kaneland which has given up 53 points.

"Coming into this year, we knew that our defense was going to be one of our strengths," says coach Williams. "They are a very young group of kids, which is the nicest thing. Our two seniors, Bob Goins and Kevin Price had done a tremendous job of leading these young kids."

But Williams like's his offense best. "We are doing the things this year we couldn't do last year. We can mix the run with the pass.

"One of the things that we didn't have a year ago was the big-play capability. It's nice to know that you can score quickly (this year)."

One point that cannot be forgotten is that Yorkville is the last team to beat Kaneland in a regular season game. But that was 2 years and 20 games ago.

And for reading this far into the story you get a bonus. 'Did you know that Yorkville is only school in Illinois that begins with "Y"?'