BY RANDY WHALEN

Naperville Central rolled to its 18th consecutive DuPage Valley Conference victory by overpowering Glenbard North 49-20 on Friday night.

However, the news wasn't all good for the No. 2 Redhawks (6-0, 4-0). Senior running back Kyle Griffith went out with a probable torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He could be lost for the season.

"I'm going for an MRI [today],'' Griffith said. "I'm not positive it's torn, but the doctor and the trainer both said it looked like it was.''

Griffith injured his knee on a 21-yard run with just over a minute left in the second quarter. He finished with 14 carries for 87 yards and two touchdowns.

"There will be big shoes to fill, but the backups did a good job tonight,'' Naperville Central quarterback Phil Horvath said.

Horvath finished 10-of-14 for 215 yards and three touchdowns. He completed his first seven passes for 170 yards.

"Basically, our mentality was to keep our intensity up and score every time we got the ball,'' Horvath said.

Quarterback Frank Pope was 17-of-36 for 170 yards and three touchdowns for No. 25 Glenbard North (4-2, 2-2). But Pope threw four interceptions--two by Dave Atkinson--and each was converted into a Redhawks touchdown.

Naperville Central scored on its first four possessions. Horvath opened the scoring with a one-yard run just 1:22 into the game.

Griffith followed with a two-yard touchdown run, and Horvath combined with Dan Passarelli on a 52-yard scoring strike. Griffith added a one-yard run for a 28-0 lead with 8:26 left in the first half.

The lone Glenbard North score came on a 34-yard pass from Pope to Greg Klos with 4:11 left in the first half and made the score 28-8.

Horvath passed to Spencer Tyke for a 23-yard touchdown to make it 35-8 at halftime.

Glenbard North's first-half offense sputtered as the Panthers lost a fumble and Pope threw three interceptions.