[Preview of my article in this weeks’ Inside—Booster]
By Jack Lydon
The high school football regular season is in the books. Lincoln Park finished 8-1 with one of the the best records on the Northside. With a 6-3 record, DePaul Prep had its best season in thirty years stretched back into the Gordon Tech era. Amundsen continues its winning ways in recent years with a 5-4 record. All three teams’ season will continue with games in the IHSA Playoffs.
The Lincoln Park Lions (8-1) survived a late charge Walter Payton College Prep (5-4) winning 14-7 Saturday afternoon at Winnemac Stadium earning a #8 seed in the 7A IHSA football playoffs.
Lincoln Park jumped out to 7-0 lead on Payton with 2:15 left in the first quarter but stalled after offensively after that. Payton’s offense was just as toothless through three quarters of the game. But with 8:19 remaining in the game, the Grizzlies faked a punt and connected on a 21-yard pass for a first down on Lincoln Park’s 25-yardline. With 2:58 remaining, Payton connected a fourth down touchdown pass to tie the game at 7-7.
On the very next play, the Lions answered. Junior wide receiver and basketball player, Jayden Dickerson, in his first year ever playing football, took the kickoff for 72 yards to the Payton 8-yardline. The huge play, symbolic of the Lions’ Cinderella season, all but sealed the Lions victory. A few plays later, the Lions pushed the ball into the endzone for a 14-7 victory.
The Lions are the surprise team of the year. “I don’t think anybody expected us to do what we’ve been doing. I am pretty sure that if you took a poll before the season started, everybody would probably pick us to finish last, Lincoln Park head coach Andres Flores said.
Lincoln Park draws a playoff game against #8 seed Hoffman Estates Hawks (6-3) from the Mid-Suburban West conference. This is an interesting match-up for the Lions. A top team from CPS facing a fourth-place team from a good suburban conference. The Hawks’ losses this year came at the hands of Fremd, Palatine and Barrington—all ranked in the Super 25. The Lions will have their work cut out for them. But they will host the game, probably Saturday afternoon at Lane Stadium.
Lions head coach Andres Flores likes his underdog status. Before the brackets were announced, Flores said, “that suburban team is probably going to be licking their chops . . . We have been underestimated all year and our athletes have shown up all year. I know people are probably overlooking us despite the record. I think we will match up fine with whoever we get in the first round.”
On Friday evening, the 6-2 DePaul Prep Rams travelled to Lisle to face Benet Academy in the game that would decide the CCL/ESCC Purple Division. The Rams gave up five turnovers, two of which went for Benet touchdowns and came away short with a 31-24 loss.
“You can’t win football games when you have five turnovers,” said DePaul Prep head coach Mike Passarella. “And two of them went for scores.”
Despite the five turnovers, there is no quit in these Rams. The Rams tied the game at 17 each with 4:33 remaining in the game, only to give up an 80 touchdown on the very next play from scrimmage run by the Redwings.
The Redwings added another pick-six to push their lead to 31-17. No quit in the Rams. Fernando “Juju” Rodriguez connected on a 40-yard bomb to Justin Sterner to make the score 31-24. It wasn’t to be. The Rams came up short falling to 6-3 on year and losing their chance for Purple Division championship.
“We struggled today on a number of fronts. Miscues, penalties on the offensive side, big plays on the defensive side, You’ve got to take advantage of what’s given to you and we just didn’t do that tonight which is not like us,” said Passarella.
Even with the loss, the Rams are still in the playoffs. They earned the #9 seed in 4A and will play #8 Dyett Eagles (7-2), possibly next Friday at Gately Stadium. The Rams and the Eagles had no common opponents. The Eagles did not pay any ranked teams and their losses came against conference foes Corless and King.
The Amundsen Vikings (5-4) defeated the Lane Tech Champions (3-6) on Friday afternoon 14-7, earning themselves a playoff berth. It was the first time the Vikings defeated in the ten years that Amundsen head coach Nick Olson has been coaching the Vikings.
The Vikings lead the Champions 7-0 at the end of the first quarter and added another after a long drive late in the second quarter taking a 14-0 lead into the halftime break. Amundsen burned six minutes off the clock after intercepting Lane’s replacement quarterback on the first drive of the second half.
Lane’s usual starting quarterback Noah Mayra reentered the game halfway through the third quarter. Moving the Champions steadily down the field, Mayra rifled an eighteen-yard touchdown pass to fellow senior wide receiver Julian Vickery to get Lane back in the game 14-7.
The Vikings run game and defense proved too much for the Champions to overcome. Reggie Mitchell ran the ball for first downs and the defense intercepted Mayra midway through the fourth and recovered a Champions’ fumble with 1:13 on the clock lock up the victory and a playoff berth.
Vikings’ head coach Nick Olson was a bit emotional after the game. “We are graduating 15 seniors, this is a special group for me,” he said.
The toughest playoff draw has to go to Amundsen. The Vikings will play Geneva (8-1) from the DuKane Conference, who are currently ranked #5 in Michael O’Brien’s Super 25 rankings of area schools.
“This will be the best team we have played all season. We are well aware of that. Once you get in the playoffs, everybody is good,” said Amundsen head coach Nick Olson.
“We are gonna just try and do what we have been doing all year and that’s trying to run the ball, stay ahead of the chains and keep the ball away from their offense.”
Amundsen’s Reggie Mitchell scores touchdown against Lane Tech.