It has been a crazy year for the Grayslake Central football team. With three starting quarterbacks throughout the year, the Rams enter the finale week of the season with a great record, winning more games than last year’s harsher 1-8 record.

“I’m really happy about how are season is going,” said varsity head coach Jason Schall. “Our guys have put in a lot of hard work this offseason. And it’s paying off on the field.”

The road has not been an easy one either. The Rams dropped their first two games to last year IHSA 5A runner up’s Vernon Hills 28-12 and to Deerfield 35-7 as the offence made struggles to make yardage gains. Then came the homecoming game against conference rival Grant. After a rough start, being down by 7-0 with 9:26 left to go in the 2nd quarter, Schall made a coach’s decision. Enter junior defensive back and wide receiver Nick Paul. Paul, the 3rd string quarterback, threw for 234 yards, including a 81 yard touchdown to senior wide receiver Peter Brewster and rushed for 120 yard for two more touchdowns.

“I just thought the whole entire time I was dreaming,” said Brewster. “I keep asking myself ‘did I just play like that? Did that just really happen?’”
He followed it up the following week against Round Lake with a 28 to 20 win with 71 yards passing with a touchdown to Brewster and 127 yards of rushing for three touchdowns.

The Rams then dropped the next two games to undefeated Antioch and Lakes, both of whom have already clinched spots into the IHSA playoffs. The Rams returned to winning form beating North Chicago 12-10. And with one game left, the Rams are looking to seal the deal on .500 season at Wauconda and a potential birth into the class 6A IHSA playoffs. A loss would eliminate any chance of making the playoffs. And even if the Rams were to go 5-4, it would be up to the IHSA committee to decide if the Rams are worthy of making the field of 32.

“We’ve shown that we can play,” said the senior wide receiver Michael Przybylski. “We beat the teams that we were supposed to beat and we’ve lost to the teams we were not supposed beat. We need to beat Wauconda to prove that.”