Naperville North sophomore Luke Williams didn’t waste any time making his presence felt.
The 6-foot, 175-pound wide receiver caught a short pass from quarterback Aidan Gray and raced 67 yards for a touchdown on the fifth play of the game Friday night.
Host Benet had to play catch-up after that, and the Redwings never did erase the deficit as Naperville North won 35-13 in both teams’ season opener at Benedictine in Lisle.
Williams is the younger brother of senior star Zeke Williams, who also plays receiver. Zeke wasn’t surprised his kid brother was a difference-maker.
“He’s growing up,” Zeke said. “I remember when we were little kids and I’d bully him, but he’d be with the big kids always.
“He’s a player that put in the work outside of this and then comes to show it on game day.”
Luke Williams, who like Zeke also plays defensive back, touched the ball just twice on offense, but both catches went for touchdowns. His second reception, a 29-yarder, capped the scoring with 3:56 left in the fourth quarter.
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But it was his first grab that set the tone.
“Me and Zeke switched spots, and as soon as I turned around, the ball was right there,” Luke Williams said. “Thank you to Aidan — if it was any later, I would have gotten lit up by the safety, but I ducked past the safety and I was just off to the races.”
Benet didn’t have the stamina to stay in the race. The Redwings did get a great performance from senior running back Carson Forney, who carried 19 times for 155 yards and scored a 2-yard touchdown that cut the deficit to 7-6.
It wasn’t enough.
“We got worn out,” Benet coach Pat New said. “I think their conditioning level is a lot better than ours, so I thought in the second half we looked tired.
“I told our team that we lost in every phase of the game.”
The Huskies certainly looked to be in better shape on a hot, humid night that saw several players affected by cramps.
Senior running back Ethan Robert was every bit the workhorse for the Huskies that Forney was for Benet.
Robert rushed for 160 yards on 28 carries and scored three TDs, including a 53-yard run with 3:46 remaining in the second quarter that made it 21-6.
“We’re conditioning well,” Robert said. “We prepared for this. We were practicing earlier this week in the heat. We knew it was going to be hot (Friday night), so we knew we had to play through it.”
The performance of Robert and Naperville North’s offensive line was steady throughout, including on a 67-yard drive that took eight minutes off the clock.
Robert ended it with a 1-yard TD run to extend the lead to 28-13 at the 7:01 mark of the fourth quarter.
As good as the ground game was, Robert gave kudos to the role Luke Williams had in that success.
“It’s absolutely huge,” Robert said. “He’s unbelievable. He’s making great catches, getting us much-needed yardage and great touchdowns.
“It opens up the run game because they can’t stack the box. They’ve got to protect the threats outside, and he’s a big threat. And so is Zeke.”
The Redwings struggled to protect against Luke Williams on his second TD, when Huskies coach Sean Drendel had Gray fire a perfect strike up the middle.
“It was a great play call by coach Drendel, just a little slant,” Luke Williams said. “I saw he was playing seven yards off, so I sped across the space and caught the touchdown.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.