So many times in sports, a team is described as a one-man show. That was not exactly the case at Deerfield High School Friday evening in front of a homecoming crowd. However, after one half of the game fans of Maine West (1-4, 0-1) had to be asking themselves one question. What would have happened if we shut down Deerfield's (3-2, 1-0) Marc Pagano?

The 5-foot-7 inch junior wide receiver stole the show in the Central Suburban League North conference opener between the Deerfield and Maine West Warriors. In a game Maine West desperately needed to win, they had no answer for Pagano and the trickery of Deerfield head coach Steve Winiecki. Deerfield dominated the first half, going into halftime leading 35-0. The final score was 35-7.

Pagano touched the ball just four times in the game, all coming in the first half, but he sure made the most of it. The four times he touched the ball, he scored on an 8-yard lateral pass, a 63-yard half-back pass, a 21-yard conventional touchdown pass and a 29-yard half back pass. The passer of each half back pass was senior Scott Ingram.

"We played a great game that gave me easy catches," Pagano said. "[Coach Winiecki] told us to play our kind of ball. We'll execute everything if we play hard every snap."

They certainly did execute. All five first half drives ended up in touchdowns for Deerfield.

A bit of optimism Maine West can take to next week, when they host Glenbrook North, is they won the second half outscoring Deerfield 7-0. A senior wide receiver scored on a 33-yard touchdown run midway through the fourth and Maine West avoided being shut out for the second consecutive game. However, Maine West has now been outscored 84-7 the last two games.

"We worked all week and we just didn't execute," said Maine West coach Chris Hare. They need to begin executing quickly to salvage a struggling campaign.

After the game, Winiecki talked about the goals coming into the game. "We played Deerfield football this week," he said. "We got away from it the past couple of weeks."

Pagano then touched on the team's goals for the remainder of the season. "We want to win the rest of [our] conference [games] and make it to the playoffs and see how it goes from there."

Deerfield next travels to Maine East (1-4, 0-1) in what appears to be a winnable game. The Blue Demons have been outscored 85-0 in their last two losses.

Maine West began a string of 3-of-4 road games with this loss to Deerfield. They play their only home game of that stretch coming up against Glenbrook North (4-1, 1-0).