Waukegan will spend this week preparing for Maine South, which has won 70 consecutive Central Suburban South football games, a streak that stretches all the way back to the start of the 2001 season.
During that 14-year streak, only four times did an opponent stay within one score (8 points or less) of the Hawks.
Six other times, Maine South’s margin of victory was two scores (9-16 points).
To finish it out, Maine South has won 13 times by 17-24 points, and a whopping 46 times by 25 or more points.
The 70th win, which was the last conference game last season, was a forfeit win over Waukegan. The Bulldogs couldn’t play due to a teachers’ strike in the district.
Ironically, while Waukegan will have a lot to prepare for in terms of the Hawks’ multifaceted offense, Maine South also will have plenty to prepare for in its first league game of the season.
That’s because Waukegan’s best quarterback is Malik Brown, and one of Waukegan’s best wideouts is Malik Brown.
In last Saturday’s loss to Glenbrook North, Bulldogs coach Juan Anillo had Brown running the team’s option offense most of the time, and playing wide receiver the rest of the time.
And the results were positive.
Brown ran the ball 14 times for 120 yards and a touchdown, and he caught a 47-yard TD pass from sophomore Daniel Hill.
That means Maine South will have to be alert for where Brown is when breaking from every huddle. For his part, the senior likes both spots.
“I actually loved it,” Brown said of playing wide receiver. “Most of my major recruiting looks are coming at receiver. Whatever gets me into the best college.”
Last year, Brown played wideout while Melvin Bobo IV played quarterback. Bobo is now playing defensive back at NCAA Division II Black Hills State in South Dakota .
Brown started his high school career playing quarterback at Collins in Chicago. When he transferred to Waukegan, Bobo was the returning starter and Brown settled in at wideout.
He believes that Waukegan’s offense is getting closer to becoming a big-play machine.
“If you take away the penalties (against Glenbrook North), we had some guys making plays,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll give them some more opportunities to be playmakers.”
Football: Quarterback Kyle Debevec was 13-of-23 passing for 300 yards and four touchdowns in a 63-20 win over Mundelein.
Three of the TD passes went to junior Jalen Tolbert and covered 55, 44 and 50 yards. Nicholas Marcinkus had the other Warren TD reception and it covered 32 yards.
*Grayslake North lost 59-54 at Normal West (2-2) when the home team scored on a 10-yard TD pass with 11 seconds to play.
For Grayslake (2-2), Daniel Oladunmoye rushed 45 times for 252 yards and four TDs.
Girls Golf: Mundelein won the team title in its own nine-team tournament at Countryside with a 365 score. Johnsburg (390) was second, Grant (391) third, Lake Zurich (445) sixth and Lakes (547) seventh.
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Medalist was KiLynn Gold of Grant with an 83.
Boys Soccer: Libertyville beat Wheaton Academy 1-0 in the semifinals of the PepsiCo Showdown and will play Lyons (7-2-1) in Sunday’s title game.
Jacob Rasmussen scored the goal for Libertyville. Brian Kim and Thomas Pearson shared time in goal.
Girls Swimming: Libertyville won the nine-team Sprint Classic at Glenbrook North that featured races of shorter distances with 139 points, 14 clear of Hinsdale Central. Deerfield was fourth, Mundelein seventh and Waukegan ninth.
Libertyville winners included Emma Richert (200-yard individual medley), the 200 free relay team, Meredith Robbins (25 and 50 backstroke), Staci Herchenbach (25 and 50 butterfly) and the 100 medley relay team.
Girls Cross Country: Lakes’ Kortney Schardt finished first in the 21-team Warren Invitational with a time of 17:35 in the three-mile race. Megan Girmscheid of Grayslake Central was fourth in 18:12.
In the team scoring, Glenbrook South (91) and Carmel (101) finished 1-2.
Boys Cross Country: Warren’s Dustin Macuiba set a Warren course record of 14:42 as he won the Warren Invitational three-mile race, breaking the old course mark by five seconds.
Warren also won the team title, beating runner-up Cary-Grove 91-106. Grayslake Central was third with 111.
Macuiba won the race by 28 seconds. Matt Aho of Grayslake Central finished second.
Twitter: @JeffBonato
Bryan Bonato contributed to this story.