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What's up everyone, Welcome back to the Friday Night Drive Podcast. I am
Kyle Neighbors along with Steve Seussie. We are live with you here on Monday,
November thirteenth. We are here to talk about the Corner Final weekend SEUs.
It was a gorgeous weekend out there. On Saturday. I went over
watch Kerry Grove and Geneva play. Was awesome being on the sidelines. I
know you got to see a bunch of football on Saturday as well. Man,
Yeah, it was kind of an interesting day just in the sense that,
like I got out of my car at Wheaton Saint Francis and I was
like, can I trust this? And I was very tormented on how many
layers I needed because I was like, I think I'm gonna be freezing in
a half an hour. If I'm not careful here, and I pretty much
went all day with a heavier jacket on, but I could have gotten away
with not wearing it, which I was like, this is this is really
strange because I finished my day at Plunkett Park watching Icy Catholic in Saint Lawrence,
and the last time I was at Icy Catholic for a football game,
there was a blizzard that had started started prior to that game that I was
at, so I was kind of all day long. I was like,
I didn't really know, like how I should handle the fact that the weather
was actually quite nice the entire day. I don't know if I've ever been
to Plunket Park and not been freezing cold. I'm usually there during the postseason,
so that part of it, but every time I'm going there it seems
to be there's there's no getting around it. It's gonna be fifteen degrees and
I'm gonna need some coffee or something along those line. But not the case.
On Saturday, was absolutely awesome watching Kerry Grove in Geneva play that game
we'll get into. Of course got out a hand, but for the most
partso's a lot of good games in the quarterfinal round. Yeah, I mean
there were a lot that really kind of came down to the wire. I
was kind of hoping that I would be able to get to a little bit
more of the actual action on the field, but following along in that window
between like three and four o'clock, you know, there were a lot of
games that kind of came down to the wire. And then doing some research
after the fact with some games that I didn't actually get to see at the
you know, at the time, like while they were going on, there
were a lot more out there that really came down to the wire inside the
last minute, some huge plays made to keep people seasons alive. I witnessed
the end of that Saint Lawrence Ic Catholic game that obviously inside of you know,
inside of twenty seconds when Saint Lawrence took the victory away. So there
were a lot of games that, like and you kind of expect that at
this point in the tournament, a lot of fairly evenly matched games, but
certainly more games that I can remember that we're kind of decided in the last
minute and went one way or the other. You can follow SEUs on Twitter
or ax at the SUS. You can find myself on Twitter at Kyle Nibber.
You can find all of Friday Night Drives content at fn drive on Twitter.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as well.
Of course, go to Friday Nightdrive dot com. We're with you guys live
twice a week during the postseason here at eleven am on Mondays and Friday or
Mondays and Thursdays, Monday's recapping Thursday is getting you a set for the weekend
here. So we're gonna go ahead and dive in here SEUs and we got
a couple of questions. Of course, you were watching live on YouTube.
Do us a favor, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel,
leave a comment. If you're watching live on Facebook or on YouTube,
you can jump into the comments and leave you ask us a question or a
comment. We'll try and get to those throughout the show today. We'll be
here for about half an hour or so with you guys seeing here. You
know, Jesse, we need a cook says five A all private and six
A all public. Sus. Yeah, I mean, starting with the all
private stuff. We got eight Catholic League teams still in the playoffs. Yeah,
I mean, when you looked at five A heading into the weekend,
I kind of felt like that was something that was going to happen, just
based on the way that the kind of the bracket fell that I thought there
was a strong possibility that we would get and all C C, L E,
s CC conference, you know, final four. I haven't done the
research on this yet. I don't really even think that I need to happen.
I have to do. This has to be the first time all four
teams have represented the same essentially the same conference in the final four of a
classification, you know, and then you know six A when you're saying all
public, I mean, there weren't a lot of private entrances in the six
A field. It was kind of a weird situation that broke those downs.
So I was thinking about this a little bit this morning, and a lot
of people that don't know how the multiplier works and stuff of that nature.
The teams that are still alive have now guaranteed that they are going to be
multiplied in the next football enrollment period, which is down the line a little
ways. But it's interesting to note because Montini has now retained their multiplier.
Saint Lawrence has now retained their multiplier. These are teams that were unmultiplied this
year. They will remain that way next year because we're now on two year
enrollment cycle. But when we head into two years from now, those schools
will jump back up in classification to where we can have this argument at another
date, but to where they I think they more logically belong in the grand
scheme of things. Did a lot of these schools I can't remember now refresh
my memory. Did a lot of these schools lose their multiplier because of the
two year enrollment period and because of COVID, Right, Yeah, there was
a lot less schools multiplied because for some reason that I still don't quite understand.
And calculating how we multiplied teams, they counted the COVID year despite the
fact that we didn't play the playoffs, and your multiplier is based on how
many playoff games you win. So if you didn't advance to the semifinals in
that one playoff year we were counting, you were not multiplied. So that
led to a lot of schools that you're used to being, you know,
multiplied that if they didn't reach the semifinals that year, they didn't get multiplied.
So we're slowly course correcting, I guess, and getting back to the
situation now where there are a few teams that slip down but now there now
they'll be going back up. And there's still another year to factor towards that,
but those schools are already assured that they're going to be multiplied in the
next two year. Roma Pocket Mark, who's a regular on the Friday Night
Drive podcast, doing this live here in the postseason. I know he's a
NAS fan, he says, Suss go to Valenta Stadium in Lagrange Park on
Saturday, NAZ in Saint Francis and that one. See what do you think?
Well, I haven't decided what my core action is going to be.
I am covering a game at four thirty in Wilmington. I've decided I want
to go see Wilmington and Morele ForSight, but I'm going to go see the
first half of a game before I head down to Wilmington. So haven't decided
where that's going to be. That's a contender for that particular visit. How
do you decide on Wilmington and Morella. It's a four to thirty game,
so it will give me an opportunity to go. It's an interesting game to
me. I think it's a contrast of styles, and I wanted to see
both of those teams live in action all year, but the four to thirty
game gives me an opportunity to go see at least a good chunk of another
game before I go there. So you got to maximize your time, Kyle.
Yeah, the Wilmington game against Seneca and the quarter file is absolutely wild.
So let's sus let's go ahead and dive in here. We've got another
question pop in here. Adam says, with so many great games this past
week, and which one stood out the most to you guys? Suits which
one? I think you just mentioned that Wilmington Seneca game. I wasn't able
to watch any of it, but I was on pins and needles as it
developed because I had several people that were messaging me and tweeting at me and
letting me know specifics of what was going on. And it was pretty funny.
Early in the game, Wilmington missed an extra point and they were actually
down seven to six, and I had actually believed the game was seven to
seven, so a couple of people had corrected me on Twitter One of them
was former Wilmington kicker Jordan Sar, who actually kicked a game winning field goal
in the state championship game against Williamsville several years ago. So I was laughing
about the fact that he corrected me. So I messaged him back, and
I messaged him back and told him you should have kicked it, and he
just quickly responded, I'm retired now that field goal that you're referening that Williamsville.
It's still one of the most wild things I've ever seen in a state
championship game. What he had tried one or two field goals or something like
that all season long, and then he goes out and boots like a forty
five yard It was not a short field goal like a forty five yard or
to win a state championship game. It's still one of the most insane thing
I've seen at the high school level. And he didn't have that much.
Wilmington's had some really good kickers in the past, but he specifically didn't have
a really long track record of kicking a lot of field goals for Wilmington that
season. I remember, as that drive was materializing, I was actually broadcasting
that game on the radio at the time, I'm like, what are they
doing? They seem to be settling in for a field goal chance. I
wasn't even sure who their kicker was. It was really it was a yeah
they were yeah, they were taking their time moving down the field, Like
what what are they doing? What's going on here? And then bam did
pound that ball through the uprights? I guess, showing how much we know,
right, Jim Sawers says, I got to I got to meet Steve
after the Saint Francis game on the field. Thanks for all your hard work.
I appreciate it. Jim was nice to meet you as well. He
talked to me a little bit after the wheat in Saint Francis went over Morgan
Park. It was it's always nice to meet some buddy who's a big fan
of what we're doing here. And I appreciated the kind words at the time,
and thanks for dropping in today. Yeah. Absolutely. We had the
week before over at Barrenton, we had someone come up and say hi to
us as well. Of course, if you ever see Susan and I out
on the sidelines, feel free to come up and say hi to us,
so we appreciate it. Any time. I'm gonna go ahead now and throw
the results onto the paye heersuits. We're gonna go ahead and go up to
one A and just kind of work our way down here. If anyone has
a question about a specific game or class, let us know. Sus started
in one A, you know the I think for the most part, things
went as planned or expected camp Point Central, though I don't think either of
us were surprised by Campoint Central winning the game. We both had Bellville all
top favored in it. Campoint CPC really jumped out to a big lead early
in this and never gave it up. Belleville all toof at some point,
I believe did re I think they had to back on side kicks that they
were able to recover. That made it a little bit interesting. But for
the most part, Campoint Central uh controlled this game. Sus. Yeah,
I'm gonna take the L here. I mean, I readily admitted that I
thought if anybody was gonna beat all TAF on the south side of the bracket,
it would be camp Point Central. But I didn't think they would win.
I'll be honest, I'll just I'll wear that L. There were,
you know, situations throughout the regular season where I felt like all TAF wasn't
a strong position here. But camp Point Central executed beautifully early on a key
turnover, and it seemed like thirty seconds into the game. I don't know
exactly how long it took. Campoint was already up fourteen to nothing. And
to their credit, they did not let Altov breathe. They suffocated them.
That game was. That game was seemingly it was a four touchdown gap before
even kind of realized the game had even started. They they dominated that game
from the from the drop. And you know, while you just said,
you know, it wasn't necessarily stunned that Camp Point Central won the game,
I'll admit to being stunned in the fashion that Camp Point Central did it.
Yeah, I completely agree. You know, Campoint Central very quality program.
I did not see them running away with this one though, sore is anything
else in one A that stood out? You know, I expected Hope Academy
to win the game, but in the fashion, the dominating fashion that they
did that was a little bit surprising to me. This morning, I saw
the clip clip of the Eddie Jenkins touchdown run just before halftime, and it
was sort of ridiculous. But that's that's the kind of explosive plays that Hope
Academy is capable of doing. Sets up an interesting match in the semis.
We'll talk about that later on, but a very impressive win for Hope and
like we mentioned last week, first time in the quarters for him. Now
it's the first time in the semis. Jesse Moving on to Class two A,
Jesse says looking forward to the state championship game in Wilmington on Saturday,
he's of course reverencing Wilmington and Morella Forsyth meeting in the state semi final.
Limington with that overtime win against Seneca, Morella Forsyde took down Bloomington Central Catholic
thirty five to eleven, and then Wilmington Seneca games suits A little intel here
if you have it. Wilmington able to get some stops at the goal line
multiple times. Is that what I read? Yeah, it was. They
actually fumbled the ball once inside their own five yard line and were able to
get a stop on that possession. And then near the end of the game,
with less than two minutes left, Seneca actually had the ball inside the
five again and Wilmington turned them away, which set them up with an opportunity
to get down the field far enough to get a game tying field goal.
Then one one got another stop in overtime keeping Seneca out of the end zone,
and then Wilmington scored on its possession to win the game. So had
made some mistakes early in the game, but defensively they came up big time
and time again over the last fifteen minutes of that game. First question I
have. I haven't seen Seneca this year, so I can't. I don't
like, why didn't they kick a field goal at any point the well score
game. You know, I think I don't necessarily know why they didn't do
that beforehand, but I guess the thought process was the end. What was
at the end of that game was a field goal doesn't get you a touchdown.
Clear when they were heading into the overtime, it would only put you
up six. So they were like, well, if they go down the
field to score on us, we have to kick it off. Worst case
scenario, if we don't get it in here on fourth down, they have
to go the length of the field. Yeah, in two minutes, and
Wilmington, despite the fact that they did it successfully, doesn't pass the football,
so I think that might have been the logic that went into the decision.
It did kind of cross my mind a little bit to that as well,
especially considering Wilmington had kicked a fifty four yard field goal in the first
half. So my thought process would have been, well, they're probably they
probably have a decent chance of tying this thing if they can get into field
goal range. So I think I probably would have kicked it, But you
know, it's hard to second guess, not knowing all the scenarios. On
the southern side of the bracket. You had Athens twenty eight to twenty seven.
The no magic for Nashville this time. They were able to get the
ball down to what about the twenty yard line or a twenty yard field goal
chance to win that game. The Hornets not able to do it though,
Athens comes away twenty eight twenty seven ses. Yeah, that was we were
talking about that a little bit, you know, over the weekend. That
was That's kind of a situation that I've seen Nashville pull games out of the
fire time and time again, so it's really surprising to learn that they basically
had a twenty yard field goal with an opportunity to win that game at the
Horn, and they missed it, but Athan's resilient, they were kind of
it was kind of a back and forth game the whole way. You know,
it's interesting now we've got two teams from the Sangamo Conference in the final
four, and they're not playing each other in the semifinals because that's kind of
where the bracket line drew. Bureau winning that regular season game against Athens,
I believe by a touchdown, so you know, kind of sets up an
interesting situation. You know, I still am confused about this Shelbyville team,
Like I said earlier this week, got beat pretty badly in Week nine by
Nashville, but now has regrouped and beat a couple of good teams here to
get to the semifinals. But I still wonder whether not, you know,
after losing in the fashion that they did in Week nine, if they have
the ability to knock off Athens on the bottom half outside of the Catholic League.
How many times and this might be a little different with seven A and
eight A going one to thirty two, but I'm trying to think how many
times we've had conference and obviously we got We're you know, more and eighthens
have to win. But how many times have we had conference mates meet in
a state title game? Do you think? Oh, it's a very very
small number. Because the geography of the smaller classifications, we haven't always been
in one to sixteen. It's very rare that you get teams sent on the
opposite sides of the bracket, especially when you all the way back to the
quadrant system, it would be almost impossible to get you know, teams on
completely and totally different sides of the bracket. I'd have to go back to
those few years when we were one to thirty two on both sides of the
bracket. You know, every bracket was one to thirty two, and we
did have that for two seasons. I think that would be the one where
it'd be most likely that that could happen. But yeah, it's a very
very small list, to be honest with you. All Right, let's go
to three A here where Duran Pecatonica returned the opening kickoff in that game to
take the lead, and I went, oh, Dupex got a little juice
today, Maybe something up that sleeve for Byron, And then Byron went,
nah, that's just not happening. Sixty three points to say are just an
absolute machine. Well, we didn't talk about this a little bit last last
week, but in the second round, I had the opportunity to go see
Byron play Piotone, and I did what I don't often do it games because
I don't necessarily like the vantage point of doing it. But I went behind
the goalpost to take a look at Byron and how they were handling the football,
to just see how good they were at it. And I'm usually pretty
good at detecting where the football is going. I couldn't find it. I
literally could not find it. So I'm sitting here going, well, if
if I can't find it, and my only responsibility here is to look and
find where the football is, I don't have to deal with a blocker or
any sort of situation. And I can't find it. How the heck is
defense trying to find it? I mean, so, they're so good at
what they do, and they don't seem to be phased by anything. If
someone does manage to stop them, they hop right back up. They'll run
the same play. They're like, well, we found out what was wrong
with it, Let's let's go run this one. And then they'll pop off
a forty yard right. It's ridiculous. I mean they've scored. They've now
scored over seven hundred points in a season. They're already up to third all
time in points scored in state history. They potentially have two more games left
and they're only I believe, seventy five point short of the all time record
for points scored in a season. So if they win the next two games,
I mean, averaging thirty eight points a game is like child's play for
these guys, apparently, So you know, that's That's what I'm kind of
keeping an eyeball on. But boy, it is really really impressive, and
you would think to yourself, hey, this has got to be a really
experienced team overall, doesn't it. I mean, to be running this so
well. Guess what their quarterback is, Kyle. He's a freshman, so
I yeah, so I think we're just starting, just starting another generation of
Byron power running machine game. I guess, because boy, is that is
really something special. I mean that they do that so so well. And
I've watched that offense for a lot. I've watched a lot of small school
football. They do it better than anyone I've ever seen and a question from
the friend who texts me over the weekend asking about I'm going to derail us
here for a second, like top five public public school programs in the state,
because we were talking about Kerry Grove and I was going through it and
I had Linal Windlow and I had Byron on their suites. This is something
we'll have to talk about during the off season, but it's definitely an interesting
conversation. Byron has to be on that short list of consideration though, Yeah,
I think so. You know, it's one of those things that I
have to sit down and give a lot of thought to. But you know,
watch I've watched Byron for a long time, and I've watched them from
a distance. They've ran through my former coverage area on a roots a basis,
you know, quite often. I've rarely almost never seen them lose.
Wilmington has gotten them before, but I've also seen them steamroll many many other
teams that I've covered at the time. It's it's just unique and special what
they've been able to build there. They have a lot of unique things about
that program that I'm sure a lot of people would like to model, but
they just can't duplicate and for a you obviously you got the chance to see
that Saint Lawrence Icy Catholic game. Tell us about it. You know,
I got there, I believe, with about three minutes left in the third
quarters. It's interesting and I know people in the Chicagoland area can relate.
It was only thirteen miles away from Plunkett Park when I pulled out of the
parking lot, and it took me almost forty minutes to get over there,
and then I had to walk a country mile after finding parking in the residential
area, so it took me a while. I got there just after half,
you know, half it started up, but it took me quite a
while to actually get down to the field. But it was impressive what Saint
Lawrence was able to do. Now, you know, Icy Catholic had a
couple of pieces that were not fully healthy available to play in the game.
But regardless, Saint Lawrence controlled the line of scrimmage, ran the ball effectively
while I was there, took care of things and just didn't let Icy Catholic
get loose with those big plays. You know they were they were banged up
at the quarterback position. While I don't know how effective he was early in
the game. But Dennis Mandelo was was hobbling around in the fourth quarter and
still trying to play, so he was dinged up. kJ Parker was unavailable
for them. But you play with the hand that you're dealt and Saint Lawrence,
I mean, was a substantial underdog coming into the game. They did
everything that they had to do. I give them a lot of credit.
You know, I can count on one hand the number of times that Icy
Catholic has lost at Plunkett Park, you know, in the last decade.
So it just a really really impressive win for Saint Lawrence and puts them now
in a position where I think they might have an opportunity to get to a
state championship game. And they've been Sat Lawrence for the better part of a
decade now, it's kind of been on that on the come right, like
get right where you expect them to get over the top there and and finally
able to get that kind of marque win for that program. Really really impressive
sus. Yeah, And I was looking at their their track record a little
bit before, you know, coming into this game after they had won,
and and what we were talking about before, like having multiplaiers you know,
restored or taken off. They made their runs a few years ago in six
A. I mean, this is actually the first time Saint Lawrence has ever
been a four A team. Yeah, so you know, for them to
you know, kind of I don't want to say breakdown, but they kind
of taken a couple of steps back over the last couple of years. I'll
be honest, I had no idea what to make of them coming into the
year. I knew they had some pieces and you know, we're you know,
potentially able to maybe do some damage. Started out really well this season,
had a couple of hiccups in the middle of the year. They'd been
tough to read, but when push comes to shove, they've really done a
nice job. This is State Representative Steve Reich, and I'm happy to sponsor
this year's for Night Drive. There'll be plenty of time for politics down the
road, but for now, let's enjoy some high school football. Whichever school
you follow, give them your support. Moving right along, let's go over
to Class five A suites. I think probably the best place to started that
NAS game, right. Yeah, you know, I picked Carmel to win
this game, but I really didn't have any like reason. It was just
kind of a gut play for me. And there was basically, you know,
it felt like all game long, that game was going to turn one
way or another. On one play I saw the video clip on it,
Nazrath scored the decisive touchdown on a third and fifteen from basically midfield where receiver
got behind the defense and a strange situation, and that was the play.
I mean, it looked like we had two very very evenly matched football teams,
you know, squaring off against one another here and it was gonna break,
you know, one way or another. And up until that last minute,
it looked like it was gonna break Carmel's way. You know, they
they've managed to take that seventeen to fourteen lead, but couldn't get that last
stop. And you know, I don't know what you need, what you're
gonna need to do to dispatch Nazareth from a postseason. I mean maybe some
sort of you know, elaborate exorcism problem, but you you just can't get
rid of these guys. I mean, I obviously we've never seen a scenario
like this where there's a seven and five team now playing in the semi final
game, you know, semifinal round, because it's never happened before. We've
never had We've never had a five lost team advance to this stage of the
tournament. There has been once a five lost team prior to this year won
one game in the playoffs. But we're we've never seen a seven and five
team this stage. Jim says, please give you a prediction on who will
be in the five eight championship game in normal sus What do you think?
Well, I mean, I go back to and it wasn't that long ago,
so we can't say, well, everything has changed. I go back
to that Week nine game with Wheaton Saint Francis and Nazareth, look at that
score and say, I don't know how you can't favor Wheat in Saint Francis
to win that game. I mean, they handled them pretty well. I
watched a good chunk of that, you know, on NHFS while it was
going on during the chaos that was Week nine. And you know, when
you have a quarterback like Wheaton Saint Francis does, who seems to just exude
confidence. He just knows how to make a play, whether it be with
his feet, throwing, I mean, that's a guy that I have a
hard time betting against in any situation. Good Matt top of quarterbacks in this
in this game Saint Francis, Yeah, we sure do. And that's another
reason and why I'm considering going to it. But it's it's going to be
it's going to be a fun game. I'm sure it will be tighter than
the first meeting was. But Wheat in Saint Francis, if you look at
their results over the course of the season, put them in a close game
and you've got to be crazy to bet against them because over the last you
know, six weeks of the season, they were seemingly in a close game
every single week, and every single week they won it. I mean,
they've won games in the last minute. They know how to play in tight
games. They don't seem to get rattled. It was kind of a sloppy
game between them and Morgan Park on Saturday, a lot of penalty flags.
But Wheen Saint Francis has a method and does the things that they want to
do, And you know, I lean towards Wheaton Saint Francis there. I
know it's a mistake to pick against Nazareth in the postseason, because it never
seems to work out if that's what you're going to do. But and then
you go to the other side. I saw the Juliet Catholic Providence game all
the way back in Week two. Joy Catholic to be frank dominated Providence.
Providence looked completely lost on offense in that game, and I think they'll admit
that they. I mean, they struggled to get the ball past the midfield
strike. And while nothing has changed in the regards of, you know,
what the personnel is on both sides, I have a hard time believing that
Providence won't put a much better foot forward in this game. All that being
said, Joy Katholic is my pick in the game. We talked at link
last week about Morris and the injury issues coming off that that second round win.
With that being said, like I forty nine to seven, man,
I just did not see that one coming. I didn't either, And I
mean, granted, you know, like Morris was was beat up in a
couple of places. Yeah, but you know, and then the other thing
that that kind of got lost in the shuffle. And I talked to the
reporter that was at the game after the fact just to confirm it. Joey
Kathock played their leading rusher HJ. Grisby sparingly in the game. He was
a little dinged up coming in. They didn't They didn't necessarily need to push
the envelope, so they didn't. And so when you consider that a guy
was over a thousand yards rushing that they didn't even need, you know,
that says another story about where Joy Catholic is right now. Momentum playing really
strong. I'm sure they would like an opportunity to get to the state championship
game. They'll play either one of them if they got there. But they
certainly wouldn't mind if Wheaton Saint Francis came to the top half of the bracket,
considering there was a last minute victory for Wheaton Saint Francis when they played
in the regular season. So a lot of intriguing possibilities for how this five
five a bracket could shake out. And then the comedy of this whole situation
for me a little bit is Providence being here. We got two fifteen seeds
in the semifinals. Providence, I don't know how they're doing it. They're
just figuring it out. So I have to be real careful to say that.
I think Joy Katholic is a big favorite in this game. Providence forces
turnovers, they make big plays. And I felt the same way about this
game last year when we had it in the playoffs, had a regular season
matchup between Joey Katholic and Providence where Joli Kathick pretty much dominated that game.
It wasn't necessarily all that close. We went back to the playoffs and guess
what happened. Providence put it all together, you know, put all the
little pieces of the puzzle together, and then when you were done, you
were like, what just happened? Like so Providence has a playoff neck that
cannot be denied, so that that makes for an interesting game too. He
is Steve Sussi. I am Kyle Nighbers. You can find all of our
content, of course at Friday Night Drive dot com. We are spending a
little bit more time with you here in Class six A. These games to
Kerry Grove Geneva. You know, Geneva comes out in that game, is
driving down the field, turns it over and about the Kerry Grove twenty yard
line. The Trojans take over, go right down the field and score,
then get a pick six Bamage fourteen to zero, and after that it just
was downhill for Geneva. Kerry Grove ends up with a running clock. I
expected the Trojans to win this game. I did not expect it to be
in this fashion whatsoever. Suits and coming away from that game. This is
not taking anything away from Lake Zerk, but when you look at comparative scores
carry Grove doing what they did against the Geneva and Lake Zurch really struggling to
get by Belvedere North, it leads me to feel like Kerry Grove is a
substantial favorite going into this game against Lake Zerch. Well, the funny thing
about Kerry Grove this year that I have to keep reminding myself is how dangerously
close this team is to have been undefeated during the regular season. Yeah,
when you think about how they lost and in the fashion that they did,
you know, I think we'd be having a different Converse station at the start
of this bracket if things had gone their way in those two games. You'd
be talking about how strong strong they are as a team, you know,
with a potentially undefeated mark. They have been really really impressive in the playoffs,
like much better than I thought that they actually were, so they don't.
Really they look really good man like now now, like like if you
asked me before the playoffs started, I would you would have asked me,
do you think anyone I'm not saying, beat East Saint Louis? Do you
think anyone can give Saint Louis a game? I think I would have answered
before the playoffs. No, I don't think they. I don't think anyone
in this field can. I'm ready to have that conversation now because I think
Kerry Grove can. I think they can give them a game. Do I
think they can beat them? Not so sure about that. But do I
think they can make it an interesting game and give East Saint Louis some trouble
if they should potentially meet. Yes, I do. Yeah. I mean
we saw this Carry Grove and eat Saint Louis meet and first state championship just
a couple of years ago. With Carry Grow pulling off and up set there.
They're really playing well. They were really young, they're still kind of
young. Carry Grow Like, this is not a one year thing for them.
I mean, it's never a one year thing for Carry Grove. But
yeah, this is a really good team that played good football down the stretch
here on the other side there. So, like I said, East St.
Louis a winner over Kanka Kee Washington, Washington playing really well. It's
a team that I kind of flying under the radar, at least for me.
Yeah, I've I've been kind of keeping Washington in my thoughts, like
the entire year. I go back to, you know, the fact that
their lone loss the season was to Kanka Key back in Week two. They
lost that game seven and nothing because they gave up a touchdown and a kickoff
return. So obviously a capable defensive team, but you know, a whole
different animal this upcoming week. But Washington has proven itself. I believe,
you know time and time again this season that they are a pretty strong football
team. The only drawback is you didn't really know how good the Middlin eight
Conference was this year. But Washington has separated themselves from just about everybody in
that league and has done a nice job and obviously getting themselves to semifinals,
trying to send out veteran coach Darryl Crouch out on the best possible finish as
he can as he's retiring at the end of the year. But now big
challenge. In the semifinals. Seven A went pretty much as expected. Glen
Bard East was the one interesting thing here. I thought they were up twenty
eight to fourteen in the second half and I was like, oh, man,
glen Bard, he's playing really well. I did not expect them to
win this game. And next thing I did. Next thing I know,
I turned back and it's forty five twenty eight. Normal Community thing went sideways
on glen Bardi's pretty quickly. Sus Well, that was my original plan on
Saturday, was that I was going to try to hit multiple games in the
Elmhurst Wheaton type of area, and I actually put into duty covering the Wheaton
Saint Francis game, which was fine, but I was a little bit upset
about it when I saw what was going on at the glen Bard East Normal
Community game, because that was going to be my second stop of the day
and I would have gone to see the conclusion of that game to find out
what had happened, but I wasn't able to do it. But once again
is another thing that kind of confuses me about this Normal Community team. You
know, I thought that they would win that game somewhat comfortably and they really
had to scrap. That score is not really indicative of how that game went,
so I just kind of wanted to get a look at them. So
I still don't really know what we're gonna get when we stick our hand in
the normal community. Back and Down in ad A one of my favorite games
of the week, with Barrington mains out Barrington pulling off that win forty two
to forty. The Broncos have a nasu so finding ways to fall behind in
games and then come roaring back. Well, we were talking about this a
little bit over the weekend about how we had kind of noticed them, and
when we were having our live event out at Barrington in round two, Innaperville
Central seemed to be on the verge of taking control of that game, and
I watched three quarters of the broadcast that was on TV. I actually didn't
program my DVR far enough because it was the game that was taking forever to
get concluded, so I didn't actually see the fourth quarter of that game.
But once again, it looked like Maine South was a play away from maybe
putting it away, and they couldn't just quite get that play, and Barrington
made some huge plays in the passing game had a huge night. It just
seemed to be making a big play after a big play. You know,
got some good special teams play and figured out a way to squeeze out that
victory. But you know, we'll talk about this a little bit later in
the week. I don't think they're gonna have the luxury of digging themselves a
hole this week. So if they try that act again, I don't know
if the comeback attack plan will work as well as it has in previous rounds
of the playoffs for Barrington. Yeah, Lincoln Way East against Warren just got
up early in that one and ran away and hid in it. A matchup
against Barrington and then York Edwardsville. That was another fun game where York let
it. It just kind of felt like Edwardsville at all times in that game
with just nipping at their heels. York ends up getting a stop late in
the red zone to pull that one out. Sous. Yeah, that was
another game that was hoping to get a peek at on Saturday afternoon and ultimately
did not. I really felt like Edwardsville was in a good place heading into
that game. And we've talked about this before too, you know, that
long road trip doesn't seem to bother that program. They usually come out and
put their best foot forward. But you know, York did a really nice
job of delivering some early punches. I was worried about them heading into this
game, especially considering how easily Edwardsville dispatched Glenbard West in the pre round.
Glenbard West handled York when they played in the regular season, kept them in
check, limiting him to one touchdown. So I was thinking of, you
know, matchup transitive property on that. You know, in that game,
I thought York might be in a little bit of trouble here, but they
did a really nice job of trading trading blows and eventually being able to take
control of that game. So, you know, credit to them being able
to keep their you know, their focus and doing the things that they had
to do to get that win. All right, everyone, we got to
get out of here. Make sure you stick to Friday Night Drive dot Com
all week long. We'll have a lot of coverage heading into the semi finals
for you, SUSO. Before we do, you got some final thoughts for
us, You know, a for final round, this is usually one of
those weeks that's probably my favorite thing to watch and take care of. Just
a lot of interesting games that we have at this stage. So uh,
the quarterfinal round definitely delivered on that. There were there was a lot of
intrigue and a lot of situations where we had to have games come down to
the wire, so you can't beat that, and obviously the results set up
some fascinating semifinal matchups. All right, thank you everyone who joined us live
this morning. If you are on YouTube or Facebook, do us a favor
and give us a thumbs up. Stick to Friday Night Drive dot com for
all your semi final content. We'll talk to you guys later. Schwiker Ganison
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