Schwiker, Gannison, Krizak Rundio proudly sponsors to Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike
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dollars for our clients. Visit GA nassi n dot com. Hello and welcome
back to the Friday Night Drive podcast. I am Kyle Neighbors here along with
Steve Susy. Everyone. It is Monday afternoon. We are recording the podcast
in SEUs. I'm looking at a one zero lead for the US right now.
I know you're not a big soccer guy. Do you get a little
excited for the World Cup? I know you. You do get into the
Olympics. Yeah, I pay a little bit more attention to it, But
it's not one of those situations where I'm like going, oh, you know
what, second by second and kind of following along. I do pay a
little bit more attention. I am aware of what's going on with today's games.
That's about the extent of my of my experience with the World Cup US
far. Yeah, you know, I like, I don't mind professional soccer
It's just I didn't grow up with it, and I've never taken a time
to like learn all the different European leagues, so it always it seemed foreign
to me, except when we get to like World Cup or you know,
Olympic soccer. I'm not like a raw ra USA guy. But as Wales
ties it up here in the eighty first minute, there's something about the World
Cup and international soccer that I enjoy. Yeah, you know, I can
see that. I can understand the merit of enjoying that for what it is.
It's just something that just never really caught a real big foothold with me,
that's for sure. I do remember this was quite some time ago,
listening to a World Cup game on the radio on a baseball trip that I
took about a decade ago. That was It was interesting because I'm like going,
I can't believe I'm listening to soccer. I'm the radio, But the
rest of the guys in the group seemed to be interested enough to invoke me
into doing so. It might have even been longer than a decade, but
I do remember doing it, and that's that's about the highest exposure to World
Cup soccer I think I've had in a long time. Yeah, I mean,
it's funny you bring up the baseball trip. This is no one listening
to the podcast right now. We're getting into personal stuff here. But I
noticed last night Sus said it was a decade ago since I was on the
baseball trip with you, the East Coast baseball trip that we did to what
Philly, Baltimore, New York, Boston. I can't believe that's been a
decade ago. Yeah, that's been some time. It has been some time
since I've had one. I gotta I gotta rekindle those one of these summers.
Yeah, all right, Well, you know, I'm sure everyone here
like, are they gonna talk football or not? So we do get excited
for football. I'm like, uh, you know soccer on most days,
do get plenty of excited for plenty of excited for football. And we're here
to recap the semi final weekend, and first off, before we dive into
the games, let's get the propers out of the way. Make sure you
go to Friday Night Drive dot com. Get all of your content there,
all your sim following content that if you haven't caught up yet, go check
that out. We're gonna have a ton of preview content throughout the week before
you getting you set for all eight games this weekend in Champagne again. Friday
Night Drive dot com. Follow us on Twitter at fn drive. Follow us
on Facebook and Instagram by searching for Friday Night Drive and you can find sous
on Twitter at the SUS. You can find myself on Twitter at Kyle Neighbors
and SEUs. Before we dive into each specific game, I think we do,
and we got to spend a minute at least talking about the weather,
which I know, of course me haha, we can make the joke of
me being the weather nerd, but I mean it had an impact on game.
I was over at Prairie Ridge and Saint Ignatious and Tyler Vacy you know,
well, I believe we talked about him to be having a pedestrian day
with like one hundred and eighty rushing yard, but he talked about like the
inability to get any grip. They play on a grass field over there.
It was a sheet of ice, like you could see where the moisture had
kind of frozen on top of the grass and kids sliding around it was.
It was it was tough out there, man. Yeah, I mean I
saw two games this weekend. On Friday night, I was at the lone
Friday night game and it was really really cold, but the wind was not
as big as a factor on Friday night. It was barely there. And
I think if there would have been win like there was on Saturday, I
might not have made it to the Saturday game. That's how cold it was.
It was. It was pretty brutal out there. Un Fortunately for both
of the games that I saw, I ice wasn't really a factor so much.
It was just bone chilling cold, especially on Saturday. And you know,
I'm talking after the game with you know, Lamont coach Brett Cooey,
and he was like, you know, you know, e Saint Louis wasn't
able to kind of materialize the balanced game plan that they liked to do.
But in reality, I think it hurt Lamont even more people that didn't know
how great of a season Peyton Solomon had. I mean, he was extremely
limited in his ability to throw the football in those conditions, and had Lamont
been able to kind of air it out like they had done before and he
still managed to throw two touchdown passes in that wind, I would have been
really interested to see what would have happened on a clear, normal day in
that type of situation, because granted, East Saint Louis certainly would have completed
more passes than they did because they didn't complete any passes, but with Lamont
having being able to have the full arsenal of their playbook available to them,
I don't know, things might have got pretty interesting. And they were already
pretty interesting, so you know, it was just one of those things where
you knew certain things were not going to be available to teams. We talked
about it a lot before. Some teams are just a little bit better playoff
built for situations that come up like that, and odds are at least once
out of the five weeks of the playoff experience, you're gonna have one of
those weekends. Yeah, and you know, if you're a winning team or
you're a team that wins, like, don't don't think we're trying to take
anything away from your team. Both teams had to play in those conditions.
But I don't think there's any doubt that the cold temperatures and the wind had
an impact on games this weekend. Sus. Yeah, you saw teams taking
time outs the end of quarters to protect wind direction. I mean, that's
just stuff that doesn't happen, you know, in ordinary circumstances their teams,
the teams are not going to burn time outs at the end of a quarter
so they don't have to punt into the wind. I mean, that's and
that I saw that happen multiple times this weekend, so you know, it's
just it was it was just a variant that you had to deal with,
and like you said, both teams had to deal with it, but it
definitely made for it made for some chess match maneuvers in a lot of situations.
And on a personal note, I don't know about you, but I'm
pretty confident I was talking with Sean Hammond over the weekend about this because there
was a quarterfinal game probably twenty eighteen, I want to say, maybe twenty
nineteen. I can't remember the exact year, but Kerry Groven Philip played in
a quarterfinal game and it was really cold that day, and I thought that
was the coldest I had ever been. I'm I'm fairly certain this weekend takes
the cake as the coldest I've ever been at a football game. I learned
from personal experience this weekend that the brand of bit pen that I prefer to
use doesn't like that kind of weather. I had a lot of pen freezing
issues this weekend. I'm surprised as a veteran you didn't have a pencil.
Yeah. See, that's the thing. I hate using pencils in that type
of situation, especially if it's like wet and kind of slushy. I just
I don't risk it. I don't even I don't even carry one. So
it's like, I just I can't do it. But but I had to
actually go over to the handwarmers and put the pens about ten feet away from
the handwarmers to get the ink back going against that. That was a little
bit of a new experience for me. I think you had a little bit
more snow deer in your game on Saturday. It kind of it got sunny
up here in the Crystal Lake area by There was a few but for the
most part it was it was done with the snow by kickoff at two o'clock.
I had I'd got a I got a little bit of snow at my
game at Lamont on Saturday afternoon. It was not that bad. The wind
was just absolutely brutal Lamont's field is kind of up on a hill. There's
a little bit of a wind block, but it was so bad that prior
to the game, I walked down and hid behind an equipment shed because it
was giving me a little bit of a windshield. As I was doing that,
a guy came out that was living in a house that was next to
the field in shorts. Mind you to chat me up and find out why
I was hiding behind the equipment shed, and so I found that to be
pretty interesting. He did invite me over to the halftime bonfire that they were
planning on having by the fence. I didn't go to check to see if
he was still wearing shorts at that point. There were there were two kids
at Prairie Ridge at one point during the game that had their shirts off on
the sidelines, and I was like, there's just now any amount of money
you could get me to do that. I saw a kid without a shirt
in the first quarter of the Lamont game, and then I looked back up
in the bleachers in the second quarter and I can't I couldn't find him anymore.
So I don't know. I don't know if he's okay. I hope
he's okay. I hope he didn't, you know, you know, die
of hypothermia or anything. But he definitely disappeared. I don't know where he
went. All Right, we're gonna go ahead and dive into the semifinal game.
We'll stick to the usual format, working our way from one through eight
A. Taking a quick break for a commercial after Class four A. Sus
And were stellar in an end Class one A with Lena Winslow in that rematch
against an n UYC rival, Forrest and Lena Winslow heading back to the state
title game thirty eight sixteen, the Panthers dominated this one pretty much throughout.
It kind of went to script. I think for what we expected SEUs Yeah,
early early advantage claimed it seemed like they had complete control of that game
really quickly in it, you know, Forrest and kept it a little bit
of closer than you know most have in this postseason. It might have been
a little bit of mercy shown to their conference FOW. I don't know,
but it's hard to find, you know, It's hard to make an argument
right now for a team that's playing better in their respective class right now than
Lena Winslow is. Yeah, I mean you come into this game, into
the state title game. We're gonna talk about it more on on Wednesday when
we dropped that podcast Wednesday afternoon. But they're gonna be the Lena Winslow Winslow
packlers will be heading to the state title as a favorite once again. I'd
say, SEUs. Yeah, I mean, I can't see anyway right now
that it makes logical sense to pick against the whoever the NUIC representative is in
the state championship game. I want to make this clear because I got some
grief last year for being positive about the other team in this matchup. I
want to make it clear. Lena Winslow is the team that I am picking
as the favorite in this game. So we can time state stamp that for
you and let you know I believe Lena Winslow is the favorite in the Class
one A state championship game. Yeah. So yeah, the Paths will be
playing camp Point Central this coming Friday for the state title. Campoint Central a
forty four eight winner over Ridge View. I'm not shocked to see Camp Points
Central in the title game, sues. I didn't expect to see this margin
of victory though. Well. I was talking with someone on Friday night in
transit to Sacred Heart, Griffin that had cluded me and had a little bit
of insight on what Ridgeview was thinking into this game, and he told me
they were extremely concerned about camp Point Central speed and made a compelling argument for
why ridge View should be a little worried going into that semi final game.
And after talking to him about it, I was like, boy, I
kind of wish I could maybe have that pickback. I don't know if I
feel as confident as I did heading into that game after that conversation, and
it really turned to I mean, that was absolutely accurate. Campoint Central got
out really fast in that game, use their speed to their advantage. It's
a program that over the past few years, if you've watched, if you
I mean Campoint Central coach Brad Dixon is a big speed advocate, track and
field coach, one of those guys that uses a lot of, you know,
somewhat innovative speed training techniques to try to enhance that speed across as entire
roster. And it really looks like those methods paid a big dividend on Saturday.
Yeah. There, I can't remember who it was. There was someone
I saw on Twitter a first air head coach for a football program who was
soliciting advice essentially through it out there, like, all right, I'm going
into my second year, how do we improve the team? I need to
get more kids out And I think the first two responses I saw from other
football coaches was get into hallways and find every track kid that you can.
So, yeah, Brad, Brad Dixon obviously on that bandwagon. Speed kills
man when when team particularly if I feel like this is certainly the case when
you get into those smaller schools too, where you don't see as much speed
as you do in the upper levels, and if you can find a couple
of those track kids, a couple of burners that are able to translate to
the football field, it can make a huge difference in your program. Yeah.
I mean, you get into a situation with Ridge View, who you
know kind of likes to hammer the ball and run it Camp Point Central.
Defensively, they use that speed to just kind of fly to the football and
make plays. And then on the other side of the ball, it makes
it a little bit easier to get to that edge. I mean, you
get you get a you know, a step on somebody turn that corner and
then all of a sudden, you've made a couple of big plays in a
row. So it definitely came into play here. I don't even I mean,
we've seen these kinds of matchups before, We've seen how the NUC teams
tend to handle that, and they haven't had a lot of problem with it.
But it still gives you that element of maybe that's an advantage that Camp
Point Central has that they can leverage a little bit. All right, let's
go ahead and go over to class to A and then the end to A.
I gotta start out. I mean, this is why SEUs you know,
um, this is why SEUs is considered the top mind in high school
football in Illinois. Because we were doing the preview podcast last week and I
was kind of already getting ahead of myself and looking forward to a Saint Theresa
Moreau Foresight two way state championship matchup, and SEUs, very much to his
credit, was like, Hey, slow your role. This Try Valley team
is playing well. I like some things they're doing. You want it far
you you pick Try Valley to win that game. They go out win that
game by twenty points. Really played strong throughout it though, Yeah, it
was. It was just kind of an instinct that I had after watching what
they had done. You know, in that second round game that I was
at where they knocked out defending state champion Wilmington, they did it in a
way that was, I guess counterintuitive to what they usually do. And I
apped hearing all these stories about how good their lead running back was and Wilmington
basically took him out of the game. But try Valley found another way,
and I'm like, hold on a second, how is this team doing this?
And then they went right back to him. Over the last two weeks,
he had enormous games. It was just like when they when they were
able to play to their strength, I felt like this team was a really,
really good football team. So I don't know if if other teams were
not able to do what Wilmington did to take him out of the game,
or they said, we got to take away these other things and you know,
and let him do his thing. Obviously not the not the smartest plan
of attack to try to take out try Valley is to let him do his
thing, because he's been doing his things. Set a Class two A playoff
record for rushing yardage in the quarterfinal round, had another monster game with five
touchdowns on Saturday. Um it is it's a It was a really really nice
performance by him and the Try Valley Vikings to to take out him. A
forsythe team that, to be honest, it was one of those teams that
I think was heard a little bit by the conditions. They tend to like
to spread it out and make things happen if they can through the air as
well as on the ground. It probably limited them a little bit, but
once again, both teams had to play in it. Yeah, and so
Try Valley is getting a match up here in the state final against Saint Teresa.
Saint Teresa a thirty nine fifteen winner over Johnson City on Saturday to Saint
Teresa, a program I think both of us all year long expected to be
in this game. Yeah, I thought so too, And it was definitely
one of those situations when I was trying to figure out exactly if Johnston City
could give them a really good run. It just seems like Saint Teresa right
now, especially on the offensive side of the football, is a really really
difficult opponent for it. Almost any two way school to try to rain in
and keep at a reasonable scoring total, and in doing that, that means
the only way you're going to get them is to be capable of matching them
point for point. I'm not sure Try Valley can do it, but I
think they're better equipped to do it than many of the opponents that they've run
into so far. But Saint Theresa, unlike last year when they kind of
got into one of those games where you know, everyone was kind of anticipating
that they were going to make the two A final and they got ousted in
the semifinals by Nashville, they were able to finish the job and finish it
pretty convincingly here. Yep, absolutely all right. Going on to Clash three
A, we had I see Catholic a thirty five zero winner over Byron and
this was, at least on my in one of the more surprising scores.
I expected Icee Catholic to win the game, but you looked at it going
in and it was interesting because we had something to base this off of,
right, because the quarterfinals matchup in twenty twenty one were the same that they
were last year, and they played out this year and a pretty similar pretty
their manor to set up a repeat matchup between Icy Catholic and Byron. Byron
won a close game against Ice Catholic in the semifinals last year, so although
I thought it would be flipped this year, I did think I See Catholic
would win the game. I thought it was gonna be close, particularly with
the weather conditions. You look at the fact that I see Catholic, you
know love wide receiver kJ Parker, Dennis Mendala or Mandala which having the soccer
on in the background, almost said Nelson Mandela, thinking the international sporting events
apparently, But you know, Joey Gliati and I'm sure Josh Welgey and Jake
Barlston will hit on this in their Western Suburbs edition of the Friday Night Drive
podcast. So I don't want to spend a ton of time here and rehash
everything that they're going to hit about or hit on. But Joey Gliada did
not really have a role in this offense until last weekend's quarterfinals, had a
huge game against Byron. Comes out again this week. Runs the ball extremely
well. One hundred and ninety two yards four touchdowns. Dominate performance by ICEE
Catholic against Byron here and like I said, with the weather conditions. I
thought it was going to benefit Byron. Yeah, I mean I was having
phone difficulties on Saturday. Maybe my phone was freezing, I don't know,
So it was making it really hard for me to kind of keep track of
what was going on in real time. This game solved itself for me pretty
quickly because I saw what was going on, and I'm like, oh my
gosh. I was surprised by it. But it also allowed me not to
be really you know, I mean engaged in what was going on, play
to play because because I See Catholic took a hold of it so quickly and
by such a substantial margin. Did not expect that at all. I mean,
I know, I See Catholic was itching for this game, this one
that the game last year stung them particularly hard. But I didn't expect a
runaway freight train like we got in this one. I really didn't. I
too expected I See Catholic to win the game, but it was just a
combination of things just really surprised me there. You know, with the conditions
being as they were, it was probably gonna limit the opportunities for Ice Catholics,
you know, kJ Parker to get you know, a whole bunch of
touches on the football to do what he does unless they got really creative with
it. But like you mentioned, Joey Gliada, this is a fascinating story
to me because you know, I mean, obviously I'm a huge numbers guy,
and to see what he's done over the last two weeks after doing let's
be honest, basically nothing for the first eleven weeks of the season. These
things just don't happen very often unless there's you know, you don't like to
talk about these things unless there's some sort of catastrophic injury involved, and there's
not here. I mean, it was just it's just a personnel decision that
they made, and obviously it was the right one. I mean, that
has been really impressive to watch what he's been able to do. Yeah,
and so I see Catholic is going to get a matchup in the three A
state championship game against Williamsville. Williamsville a twelve seven winner over Tolono Unity.
And when it became really apparent that weather it was going to have an impact
on these games. So this was actually the I think the number one game
to me that I felt was going to be impacted because I just thought like
that it played so much into what Tolono Unity likes to do. They like
to control the clock when they get into these playoff matchups that are going to
be close. I just thought it would be a low score and affair.
Williamsville was able to pull it out, though, well, I mean early
on and for a while there that game was seven nothing, and I started
to get the feeling that maybe it was gonna end seven nothing for a while.
It just, like you said, it definitely was a situation where the
weather was going to play a factor in this one. You know, Williamsville
is a program that that I would put on a short list of teams that
just seems to figure it out. Yep. I might not have a you
might not have a real clear reason for why it happened, but at the
end of the day, when when it comes right down to it, they
seem to figure it out. And I and that must have been what happened
here. M I've read some brief accounts of this game, but it just
kind of feels like, you know, when they needed to make a big
play, they made it. And it's it's just, uh, it's kind
of been a hallmark of this program for a while. Um. I was
looking at it the state matchups a little bit yesterday and just kind of thinking
about them from a historical context. With Williamsville for me, it's like for
Aaron Khons and that's that staff. I'm like, if they get in a
close game with IC Catholic and late in the fourth quarter, UM, I
wonder if they can they can handle it emotionally. I mean, they've been
They've made two state championship appearances. They lost one in the final seconds of
the game in twenty fourteen to Wilmington. Flashback to last year they won one
in the last thirty seconds of the game against Byron. It's been you know
that They've kind of been the cardiac kids of state finals over the last decade
or so. So, um, it'll be interesting to see if this is
a competitive game again and what happens if that comes into fruition. Yeah,
they always provide us with some fireworks at state football, so that'd be a
good one on Friday afternoon, scheduled kickoff at four pm there. So moving
on to Class four A here, starting in the north bracket, we had
Providence A seventeen fourteen winner over Weed in Saint Francis. This game really came
down to the wire, was close throughout Providence, the thirteen seed. Just
you know, we we've talked about that, they've been on the role.
You had a feeling that they would be able to get here, and they
pulled out the close win. Suits Yeah, And like I said before,
I was having trouble tracking game results, and I was planning on watching my
game while trying to listen to the radio broadcast of that game while it was
going on. I do this quite often when I can, but my headphones
froze up on me, so I couldn't use those either. So I was
having trouble. I was having trouble of tracking that game and finding out exactly
what was going on. I had a friend tell me shortly after the Lamont
game had concluded, Oh yeah, Providence. Providence won. They scored late
and won the game. And you can't see me right now, but my
reaction to it was completely unshocked. Face. It was just like, oh,
really they pulled the one out at the end of the game, big
surprise, you know. It's like, that's just that's kind of the vibe
that I have with this team right now is close game, no figure it
out. I mean, that's just kind of where I'm at with Providence right
now, really really riding that mojo train right now. They are doing a
lot of things well and and it if you would have asked me five weeks
ago to rank the teams in the North bracket as to how they were going
to get whether they would get into the championship game, Providence might have been
in the upper half of that group, but it certainly wouldn't have been near
the top of the list. I'll say that much. Yeah. No,
just an incredible season here for the Celtics and Lucas proudfoot hitting Kayden Nickel there
and the final minutes of that game to put the Celtics out in front and
get them down to Champagne where they're going to face Sacred Heart Griffin in the
state title game. So many intriguing things to talk about in this game.
First off, let's start with the game itself. I'm talking about the semifinal
game. Sacred Heart Griffin winning the final Leonard Bowl here fifty six forty two
over Rockchester Loan game lone semifinal game in the state that was played on Friday
evening, SEUs, you were down there for the game. I was following
along and Rockchester gets out to a twenty one zero lead in the game,
and I just all I thought, I think at that point, well,
the first thought was what the hell is happening? And I guess the second
thought was, Oh, that shouldn't surprise me. Derek Leonard is a madman.
He figured it out. I don't know why I'm surprised to see them
doing this. Well, let me preface this by saying, you know,
when I was watching the game at the beginning, I was like, this
is interesting because, and I say this in a complimentary way, Rochester's quarterback
Keaton Reese is a husky boy. He is not exactly the prototypical form of
what you would expect from a Rochester quarterback. He's got a little punch behind
him, so they were using him almost as a running back out of the
backfield, and they didn't really attempt any passes for a long time in that
game. It was it was available to do that. It wasn't a situation,
like I said before, where the wind was was hacking them down.
They were just like, we're gonna We're just gonna take our quarterback here and
and bully around and see what happens, and Sacred Heart Griffin couldn't really stop
him. And it was It was one of those things where you mentioned it
with coach Leonard. Coach Derek Leonard, you know, he goes mad scientists
sometimes, so apparently he thought this was an avenue that might work for his
team, and it did for a long time. It ended up not being
as effective in the second half when they kind of needed to rebound from some
miscus, but it got them in a position where I felt like they might
be in control of that football game. But there were a couple of small
instances where it was like, if Rochester can gets to stop here, maybe
this is over. But somehow Sacred Heart Griffin found a play in their bag.
Found I mean, right before halftime, they scored a touchdown with less
than thirty seconds left. They kind of sliced into that lead and made it
feel like Sacred Heart Griffin was very much still in the game. And then
in the second half they showed why they'd been able to do all the impressive
things that they've done. Scored a pair of touchdowns in about a minute span
to finally take the lead in the game. It was and I mean both
of these coaches obviously, you know, have a lot that they've achieved already
in their careers, but I mean it was a weird situation for both of
them. I mean, Derek Leonard obviously wants to win and bring his team
to the state finals, but I don't think he relished really being the guy
who ended his father's coaching career. So it was a really tough spot for
him to be in it. And I kind of felt that in the post
game after the fact, not that he ever, hey I'm gonna I'm gonna
roll over here and let Pops go to the final. That was not That
was not part of the equation. Well that's what That's what I wanted to
bring up, because early in the game, I want to say it was
after the first touchdown, Rochester did an on side kick and recovered it and
went down and scored again. And I when I saw that, I was
like, well, Derek's not going to take it easy on his dad to
make sure his dad gets to a state championship one last time. Like I
wonder there, I wonder if they had a conversation about that after the game.
Where Keno was like, really, yeah, you had to go with
the ons I kicked there. Huh yeah, I mean I talked to Derek
briefly before the game. He came over when he saw me, and we
spoke briefly before the game, and I kind of hinted at him, I'm
like, what we're gonna do here, and he just he just kind of
shrugged his shoulders and like, well, let's go see. And you know,
it was. It was and so they definitely, you know, he
like I told him after the game, I said, you threw the kitchen
sink, you threw everything in the kitchen sink at him, and then went
looking for a second kitchen sink and he's like, yeah, we couldn't find
it. I mean, so, I mean he was he was invested.
There was there was no doubt about that. And and uh and he put
it all out there to try to get his kids into that state championship game.
It's just this Sacred Heart Griffin team is really, really, really talented.
And for all that Rochester did pretty well in the first half to stop
them defensively, Sacred Heart Griffin just made some plays, especially in the last
ten or eleven minutes of that game, and that's what you do when you
have the weapon that they do have. So really it was it was really
a fun environment. Um. It actually got a little heated at the end
of the game because Sacred Guard Griffin had the win in in their pocket and
didn't take a knee on first down and uh and let's just say Derek wasn't
very happy about that fact, so they both maybe had some conversations. They
obviously they patched it up quite quickly at the end of the game, but
they're competitors. I'm sure the second the whistle ended, they it was it
was all good. Yeah. And like I said, when you know,
when I look at heading into the State final game, uh, I'm sure
that now uh, Sacred Gard Griffin has an unofficial assistant coach on staff now
that is kind of help them plot against Providence. So uh yeah, it's
it was. It was definitely. It was definitely something that I was glad
that I was able to see, even though this is the last one that
it is going to happen, because it's definitely a different environment in a situation
like that, and something that I think we'll go a long time before we
see anything like it. Again. Yeah, and a quick note, a
really cool note that so Ken Leonard advancing to the state championship game will be
his final game as a head coach of Sacred Heart Griffin retiring at the end
of this season, and it will be his five hundred career game as head
coach. I thought that was kind of a cool, cool way to go
out at an even five hundred SEUs. We were talking in some of the
coaches conferences today and someone asked Providence coach Tyler Plants, who will be coaching
in his fourteenth career game as a high school of varsity game, if he
had four hundred and eighty six more in him to try to catch up to
coach Leonard. So he just he laughed that one off. But yeah,
obviously an incredible career that that coach Ken Leonard has put together. And one
more shout out before we do a quick commercial break here and then come back
for five A through eight A. I I gave him a shout out on
Twitter, but I want to do it again on here because not everyone is
on Twitter. Uh. Derek Paris, who is the director of sports director
down at Channel fourteen fifty down Stay does a fantastic job of covering that area
and getting highlights online. And it's it's great UM for our purposes, I
know, because it's it's being able to see highlight from games or we're not
at gives you a lot better feeling. He does a great job though,
did a great job given those highlights online Friday night, and just wanted to
give a shout out to Derek uh There. If you are a high school
football fan and you want some more information for Central Illinois teams, make sure
you follow him on Twitter. It's at Derek d R E. K Paris
with two RS suits. I know, you know Derek does a great job.
Yeah, he really does. I mean he's a real advocate for for
high school sports in that area. You know. I hope there's as many
of those people out there as we can get. Obviously it's something that we're
all passionate about UM. But Derek always always goes the extra mile. I
mean there are times when when I asked Derek what he was up to today
and he tells me four or five different things. So it's I mean endless
motor and just really really really does the community in that area great service.
Well, we're already past the thirty minute mark as we go to a commercial
break here. Hopefully everyone's enjoying it. Not two upset with us rambling here,
but we're gonna, like I said, take a quick commercial break and
then we'll come back to break down Classes five A through eight A. Schweiker
Gannison Krizak Rundio proudly sponsors the Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike Krizak. If
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thank you once again to sgk R for sponsoring the Friday Night Drive podcast
and everything we do at Friday Night Drive again this season. It's great to
have them on board. Moving on to Class five A. Here, a
really low scoring game, another game where I mean I expected to be low
scoring to begin with, but definitely think the weather kept those scores down even
more. Nazareth pulling out a ten seven win over Sycamore, and first off,
congrats to naz a team that has gotten better throughout the season. A
young roster that took its lumps last year during the twenty twenty one season,
and he just got better and better. But before we kind of dive into
that, I feel a bit bad for Sycamore because this is two years in
a row against a really good private school. They've led led a game.
Last year they lost to Fenwick in the final minute, this year losing a
late lead, Nazareth getting a touchdown winning that game ten seven suits tough break
for the Spartans. Yeah, I mean it was definitely one of those games
and I think we even mentioned it that we kind of felt like was going
to be a low scoring kind of slug fest, and that's what it turned
out to be. I'm sure the weather had a little bit to do with
keeping it down, but I think this game might have been this way had
it been perfectly clear and great conditions as well. So, you know,
tip of the captain Nazareth. I mean, two and four. At one
point this season looked like the playoffs were in jeopardy even getting into the field,
and now that now they're you know, they've obviously caught a huge role
and winning seven in a row with their backs against the wall. But but
like you said, still feel bad for Sycamore in this situation. Proved that
they are, you know, at the very least just a tiny little sliver
behind Nazareth, but that was enough to keep them out of the state championship
games. So, you know, tough way to go for the Spartans,
but know that they were beaten by an opponent that that has a lot of
battle scars of their own and certainly earned its place. Yeah, how impressed
are you with this nath team? To lay it's the belop throughout the course
of the season. You know, it was one of those things when I
looked at them from an evaluation standpoint, when I'm trying to put them together
for playoff projections and state ranking purposes and stuff like that, I never really
had what I felt like was an accurate read on what they were, especially
early in the year. But you started to notice it around like week seven
or week eight that they were they were not only winning what looked like on
paper to be toss up games, they were kind of putting the hammer down.
So they found something. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but
I knew as soon as they got to win number five, and obviously it
took until week nine to secure that that whoever got them wasn't going to be
real happy about it. When in terms of the playoff bracket where they were
seated, you knew they were going to be a double digit seed, but
they were just screaming dangerous as soon as the bracket was put together. So
it has been a very very nice run for them, you know, a
run that I think they could potentially finish, you know, in that five
A finals. So, uh, you know, kudos to them because it
would have been real easy to to fold up and worry about the remaining schedule
when they were sitting there at two and four going, I don't even know,
I don't know if we can run the table and get ourselves into the
playoffs, let alone do something once we get there. So, you know,
great on them for keeping that focus and being able to do what they've
been able to do. Yeah, they They're gonna have to score some more
points in the state title game though, because they're gonna get a match up
on Saturday morning against Peoria. Peoria a seventy six fifty six winner over Morris,
and once again we talk about weather conditions, you know, Like I
know, Peoria it's no stranger to put it up points on the board,
but seventy six points, seventy six fifty six this weekend is not what I
expected. Like I expected, you know, probably both teams to make it
into the thirties, but this really, this wasn't super competitive. Peoria got
out to a big lead and like fifty six point for Morris, but a
lot of that was just catch up down multiple touchdowns in the second half.
You know, when I turned my phone notifications off on the weekends because I
get a lot of them, So if I would have had them on and
just had them set to indicate the words Malachi and Washington, my phone would
have probably exploded. That kid has been an absolute workhorse for a different look
Peoria offense than we're used to. It felt like when my phone was working
properly, he was scoring a touchdown about every thirty seconds. I know that's
not exactly what happened, but it certainly felt like that was what was happening.
You know, just a really, really incredible effort from that Peoria team.
They're fun. It's just like, I don't know how many people know
him or have experienced him before they made a state run a few a few
years back as well. But coach Tim Thornton is just kind of one of
those guys that just says, let's see what happens, Let's throw it out
there and let it make and and you know, let the big dogs eat
and see what goes on. Um just kind of I mean, not not
reckless in any way, but not real worried about taking too much caution to
things. They'll take some chances, they'll do some creative things, and they'll
let their athletes make plays. And it just they seem to be having a
lot of fun doing what they're doing like they I mean, granted, they're
in a state championship, it's got to be fun, but there just seems
to be a different level of fun to when when Peoria is clicking on all
cylinders. Yeah, you know, we're used to seeing a high flying offense
that was even above and beyond. Particularly Morris came into that game, their
defense was averaging, having had allowed twelve point seven points per game, and
just and in the story from Randy Wayland that that covered the game for US,
Randy Rowe, uh you know, I mentioned that, but he also
talked about the fact that the Hyans that game was twenty four fourt with just
over three minutes left in the first half, and by halftime it was forty
six to fourteen. Yeah. I mean, and that's that's the kind of
thing that Morris has done to other people. I mean, it was definitely
a you know, shoe on the other foot, this type of situation for
Morris in that game. I thought there was definitely a possibility that Peoria would
win this football game. I did not think it would be in this fashion
where like Morris simply could not stop them. Like if if we would have
had, you know, if we would have had to gone farther in this
game, I would have felt like Peoria, you know, was closing it
on triple digits. I mean, that's that's just that was just kind of
what I did not see that as a possible scenario. To be completely honest
with you, I didn't either. But okay, let's go ahead and move
on to Class six A and the first game. I've both of these games.
Um, you saw the East Saint Louis Lamont game. I saw the
Prairie reach seeing ignatious game. And to be frank, this is going to
take a minute to get through because there's a lot to impact in both of
these games. So we're gonna start with Prayer Fridge versus saying Ignatius, a
back and forth game. I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, this
was certainly a game that was impacted by the weather. Pr plays on a
grass field. It's down kind of. It's the field is sunk down a
little bit. And because of that, the snow and the ice that we
had had during the week didn't completely get off the field as much like they
you would see you could tell like they had cleared it the best they could,
but like the ground was just frozen. It was hard for both teams.
Like you're so used to seeing Tyler Vasey get to the edge and plant
that foot, that that back foot and just cut up field. And there
was a couple of times he broke a long touchdown eventually in that game,
but everyone just looked like they were trying not to slip. Everyone was kind
of ginger. Everything looked slow. It was so odd. It was everything
was in slow moostion. They jump off the snap of the ball, and
it felt like everyone would stop first split, you know, just a split
second so they could reset their feet, so they didn't fall down and then
make that push forward. It was so odd zeus. Yeah, I mean
it was, Oh, first of all, told you, told you this
was going to be a better game than you thought, you know, And
it's definitely like, as I was kind of picking up and piecing together what
was going on in this game, I'm like, oh boy, this is
this is gonna be something. This is gonna come down to the wire here
in some capacity. And then the way that it finished after I found out
the details and the backstory and all the other stuff about it, I just
kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, prayer Ridge just doesn't lose games like
this, even if it's even if it's a weird situation that you wouldn't have
thought like benefited them or put them in a role of being the favorite.
And I certainly wouldn't have thought that heading into that situation to decide to kick
the field goal in the way that they did. Um, But I've I've
learned over time that I don't question Chris Shremp and the prayer Ridge coaching staff
because what they're doing usually works. Yeah, I mean, so let's get
into that. I haven't didn't really break that down yet so this was a
game where it's it's pretty low scoring throughout right. You get to the end
of the third quarter. Um, it's twelve seven Prairie Ridge, Vinny Rue
Guy uh goes down field and uh with five minutes left in the game.
They they uh, they get the touchdown, take the lead thirteen to twelve.
PR counts back, puts together a drive, faces a long conversion Tyler
Vasey with a touchdown pass from twenty two yards out. Uh to to get
PR back in front. You're thinking, okay at that point, like Saint
Saint Ignatius isn't going to go right back on the field. Well they do
within forty five seconds, Guy back into the end zone on a thirty four
yr run, say ignitions take the lead. And then I'm like, all
right, so what p are gonna do? They work down the field.
It's taking longer than I expect, honestly, Like it's it's Chris coach,
Chris Strump's holy non to his timeouts. I believe all three timeouts. It's
down to a minute. At this point, they're at like the forty yard
line of saying ignations, I'm kind of like they're they're moving honestly slow.
Like I was like, you guys, I'm like, you guys, gotta
go, you gotta go, you gotta go, and they just it just
everything seemed to be developing slow. It gets to the point pr is down
into about twenty six seconds left, facing a fourth and seventeen. They run
the same I'm pretty sure, the same play that they had scored the touchdown
in the past. Play ends up getting a past interference call, and it
was past interference, but it sets up a fourth and two. They get
the first down. At this point, there's nine point seven seconds left.
They're at a point of the field where the field goal is certainly makable,
but the conditions are bad to begin with, Brogan am hurt as we're as
we're about to get into here, had missed the first extra point of the
game and as it turns out, had never kicked a field goal in high
school football before. And I'm going, I'm going, in my head,
like nine point seven seconds, okay, can they get two plays in here
to have you know, like, do you do you throw it short of
the end zone, try and get out of bound. You take two shots
to the end zone and then Chris remp sends sends Brogan out there, and
I was shocked. I didn't see it coming and Brogan he pounds the ball
through the uprights. Uh, I mean the kick was good by ten yards.
I was completely shocked. I mean just I mean that is true.
Guts to send him out there, and just all the credit into the world
for him nailing the kick and he so Apparently Alex Kentucky Joe Stevenson covered the
game. Uh, talked Brogan after the game. Brogan and Tyler Vacy are
best friends, and apparently Tyler Brogan had told Tyler during the week, or
Brogan had told Tyler during the week he was going to make the game winning
field goal, and Tyler laughed and said, you know, like I hope
it doesn't come down to that, and then bam, and you know,
great pictures you know at Friday Night Drive dot Com and in the Northwest Herald
of those two hugging each other after the game. Just one of the craziest
finishes I've seen in a high school football game. Yeah, and from a
distance, it was just kind of like when you when you picked up all
of that information, it was just like, oh my gosh, what had
to go into the decision making, the thought process. I mean, I
would immediately kind of flashback to and we mentioned it earlier in this podcast,
the Wilmington Williamsville State championship game of back in twenty fourteen, where I was
fully expecting Wilmington to try to march down the field and score a game winning
touchdown because I didn't think there was really any alternative to that. And then
what ended up happening was they were just kind of nonchalantly moving around and they
weren't moving any big rush, and then they sent the kicker out there,
and I'm like, what's going on? And then it was like forty two
yarder. He absolutely drilled the field goal and won the state championship for them.
So I'm like, sometimes sometimes these coaching staffs and stuff know a lot
better than we do what their kids are actually capable of in the clutch.
But still all those other factors coming into play, extremely gutsy call in that
situation to go that way with all all the marbles on the line. And
it was such an odd game throughout, like we get there or I get
there, actually got there a little bit late, the game had just started.
I'm coming down the stairs to get onto the field, and as I'm
doing it, prs about to what it looks like a score of touchdown.
I can't remember who was running the ball, I apologize, but someone would
tackle shore of the goal line. You could see both his knee and elbow
with that when his elbow hit the ground the ball popped out. They actually
ruled it a fumble. Say Ignatius took the ball, and then there was
a I believe yeah, the first PR touchdown, it was pretty clear Alex
Kentecki at the video that that the runner was down short. So there was
these odd instances in the games, like everything was just kind of weird and
how it developed. It was a great football game overall, though a lot
of fun. It's gonna make a good state title game. And we'll get
into this more on SATOR on Wednesday when we record. But we get a
rematch here from a few years ago with Prairie Ridge playing East Saint Louis in
the title game. East Saint Louis a winner thirty two twenty nine over Lamont.
But quickly before we get into that, I want to recall back.
We'll have a story about this later in the week. M p R.
East Saint Louis lost to Carry Grove in the six A state title game and
what a lot of people consider the best six or the best title game state
history last year. And coach Darren sunk it after that game, uh,
talking about the triple option, a joke about someone in the North bracket needing
to not carry Grove out, not carry Grove out, so they didn't have
to deal with the triple option again. Well, they don't have to worry
about carry Grove, but they're gonna see Prairie Ridge's triple option again. Yeah,
and I and I can't imagine they're all that excited about doing it again.
No, that's not only because of what happened in that state title game.
That ain't. That's not fun for East Saint Louis. They're not.
They don't enjoy that. No, no, so, but it's I don't
want to say a miracle because that would be overstated it. But they had
to work to get here because that game Lamont was up fourteen zero early in
that game AGAINSTEE Saint Louis. Eas Saint Louis ends up pulling out that game
thirty two, twenty nine. It started to go It was funny, so
I'm watching that game, like you, I know you're there. I'm seeing
the updates and it was fourteen zero and then Lamont stopped scoring, and my
immediate reaction was, well, they didn't score enough. Here it goes and
East Saint Louis come back and takes the lead, right, but then Lamont
starts answering. It's going back and forth, and I'm like, okay,
I you know, shoot out here. But for the second year in a
row, East Saint Louis able to edge out Lamont. It was a hell
of a game, SEUs. Yeah, it really was. I mean,
when Lamont got out to that fourteen nothing lead, it kind of felt funny,
like it was. It was pretty surprising to everybody who was there,
I think a little bit, and even some of I mean, it was
probably the most electric I've ever seen a sideline of a team in the first
quarter. I mean, Lamont was juiced and deservingly so they were really fired
up, and East St. Louis just looked irritated, like just like we're
like, we can't do what we really want to do today. We still
think we're gonna win the game, but we're gonna try some things because we
want to see if the work and they didn't. I mean it was like,
like, like I mentioned before, eastt. Louis didn't complete a pass
in the entire game. That's not very East St. Louis like. But
finally around the middle part of the second quarter, it was like, not
that they didn't already know this, but oh yeah, we've got the one
of the top offensive lineman recruit in the nation at one tackle position. Two
other honor will mention all staters on the offensive line also up there. Let's
just give the ball to our sophomore running back who's very talented and let him
do work until he passes out. And I think he almost did pass out
at the end of the game. Heavy workload for tay Ryan Martin ended up
with thirty six carries in the game in three hundred and seventy five yards rushing.
So because that's basically all the St. Louis offense was for the rest
of the game. It's not the way the Flyers usually play, but the
Flyers ultimately what they were concerned with was getting a W and moving on to
Champagne Like. However, they had to do it. It wasn't as enjoyable
as it usually is for them because if you've never seen a Saint Louis before,
they like to chat a little bit with their opponents and with people around
him. So there's just kind of a certain energy about East Saint Louis that
sometimes ruffels some people the wrong way, but they usually back that up,
and so it's it's definitely one of those situations. But you know, I
have to give a lot of credit to Lamont, and I know they're probably
still stinging from this after the fact, and I know they felt like this
was a game that they could have won, and I agree with them.
It was a game that they could have won. Peyton Solomon an outstanding senior
year for Lamont at the quarterback position. Finally, in the second half,
it was almost like Lamont said, it's not ideal to pass in this situation,
but it's what we're going to have to do, and he threw two
touchdown passes in the second half, drew a critical pass interference penalty on another
play that probably wasn't It probably wasn't a pass that he'll look back on and
say, boy, that was a that's a past that I'm putting on my
highlight reel, But just a gritty effort from him and that team, and
they had the ball with a minute left in the game and an opportunity to
potentially win the game. And if you would have told me before the game
that that was going to be a scenario that would have played out, I
would I would have said, no, there's no chance of this. So,
you know, it gives me a little bit of pause for East Saint
Louis moving into the final um. There was there was, I'll put it
honestly, there was some lethargicness in the defensive on the defensive side of the
ball from from East Saint Louis. They have some very talented secondary players.
I don't think they played up to their potential out there in that situation.
So I don't know if that's something that Prairie Ridge can exploit. But there
were some things that I just found weird. It's like East Saint Louis came
out at halftime about half of their team were in full length winner jackets,
like they were not digging the environment and they didn't care if you didn't know
if you knew it just I mean, just things that like that were just
a little bit like off center about them. So you know, I'm sure
they they they think and feel that they're the most talented team in this class,
and they're they're they're going to ultimately figure out a way to win football
games. But they had to scrap a lot harder than I think they expected
that they were going to have to against lamonth Yeah, we're gonna definitely get
into the p R E. Saint Louis matchup on Wednesday. A nice little
tease that because I'm I'm on board, we'll get into that on Wednesday.
With thinking that this is gonna be a game in the sixth say title game.
I want to go quickly back to PR because there's someone else I forgot
to mention when you talk about offensive linemen and stuff, Justin Scott, the
very very talented, saying ignatious offensive and defensive lineman being recruited by just about
everyone across the nation. I just want to bring this up because it was
really funny. So he plays both ways. I think, you know,
we think a lot about him on a recruiting aspect about being an offensive tackle
right, but has a big impact on the defensive side of the ball.
Sus So the play where I talked about them drawing the past interference play.
That's fourth thound and seventeen. They come out of the time out, Justin
Scott is in the middle of the defensive line. It does not drop down
into the stance, and I immediately like, oh, he's just They just
told him a barrel straight towards Tyler Baci and he did. He came right
through the light just ye know, he's a giant kid. Yeah, and
he just came right through. And I was like, Oh, this is
gonna end with poor Tyler Bassy getting flattened by Justin Scott. And Tyler was
able to avoid flush out to the right and miss it. But it was
just it was one of those things you don't see high school kids that size
very often, and it looks very weird when they're standing in the middle of
the defensive line, standing straight up already, just the bull right through the
middle. Don't see that every day, No, you don't. I mean,
like I said, it was definitely he's a definite talent. And it's
just one of those things where when we were breaking this game down last week,
I'm like, there's probably gonna be some situations where somebody gonna feel some
pain. Oh he made an impact in that game on both side the ball.
He was terrific throughout. Yeah, all right, let's get over to
class seven eight here. We're running really long, a lot to talk about
having a good time. Mount Carmel a twenty to nine winner over Saint Rita
in that rivalry match up here. It was Rita did a really good job
defensively against Mount Carmel for a lot of that game. The Caravan able to
get the lead and then put it away with a pick six. You know,
it's maybe a little bit more trouble than I expected for the Caravan,
but Saint Rita got one. St Rita got better as the season went on.
It's a rematch, it's a rivalry, and again the weather condition,
so I guess I shouldn't have been completely surprised with the way that game developed.
Yeah, it took a while for Mount Carmel to get into kind of
a groove offensively in that game. Finally, I guess recognizing that maybe they
couldn't go down field as much as they wanted to and kind of started to
settle a little bit more for some intermediate passing to move the football. And
once they did that, it's things seemed to get a little bit easier for
them. You know, it felt like in that first half that st Rita
was controlling that game and doing exactly what they wanted to do. The most
pivotal thing for them when they had those sustainable drives in the first half that
allowed them to get to that six nothing lead, they could have punched one
of those in for a touchdown. I think we might have been talking about
a lot different storyline right now than we are. They just weren't able to
do that, and that's a that's a tip of the Captain Mount Carmel's defense,
which is a really really good unit, that they were able to force
them into field goal situations. St Rita probably as the best kicker in the
state as well at their disposal, so they don't necessarily have to get into
perfect field position for him to take advantage of that leg. So, you
know, when you look at the grand scheme of things, you know,
Saint Rita threw a much heavier punch in this game than I thought they might.
But Mount Carmel, once again, from from top to bottom, just
a deeper a superior overall team in that situation, and eventually that weight out
in the second half and Mount Carmel is going to get a matchup against Batavia.
A lot to unpack with this matchup on Wednesday, a rematch of a
controversial game from last year's playoffs. I'm sure Batavia ready to play one U.
It's interesting, um, you know, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna tease that and just leave that to Wednesday sees because we're running
along and I want to get into this game. But that is a top
of mind already. But yeah, Batavia a twenty four seventh winner over Lake
Zurich, and we talked about on the preview podcast last week about Lake Zurich
maybe showing a little bit more on offense than they had in the past.
They took the seven zero lead in this game and Mahia reaction was quote,
maybe I was onto something there. And then really after that point it was
all Batavia. They get the league going into halftime at ten seven, and
then really early in the second half, Tyler jan Zy, who finished with
the right around one hundred and fifty rushing yards, broke off a long touchdown
run. It was pretty much all Bulldogs from that point forward. SEUs Batavia
taking care of business. Yeah, Batavia doing what they have done a lot
in playoff games in the situation, just kind of gradually inching away from the
opponent to the point where then it becomes a gap that the other team can't
overcome. A lot of that is a credit to their defense, especially in
this situation. They've been really holding some pretty potentially potent offenses in check to
this point. I don't think lake Zurich had, you know, an offense
that was going to be able to put up a bunch of points. So
it had to be a situation where maybe they eked out of you know,
fourteen ten or a seventeen fourteen win. Batavia was able to get more points
than that on the board like Zike wasn't able to answer it, like you
said, got it on the board early. So you're thinking, well,
maybe, but if you look at Batavia's track record in these playoffs so far,
they have not given up a bunch of points and they've they've they've held
in check offenses that are a lot more potent than lake Zurich's. So you
know, if something was going to have to happen for lake Zurich and this
one, maybe a turnover for a score or some sort of situation where you
know, because I didn't. I didn't think they were going to get it
through traditional means, and when that didn't come, it was pretty easy to
see how Batavia ended up winning this game. All right, one class left
to go, and honestly, we can spend we can We can probably save
a bit of time here in Class eight day because you had Lincoln Way East
a thirty to three winner over Glenbard West, and then Loyola a thirty one
seven winner over York, and so you know, first off, I think
we both expected, really all season long, these were the two teams if
the brackets shaped up where they were on opposite sides, we expected that they
had the highest chances. Now a day is a tough field, I completely
understand that, but these were two really good teams, and no disrespect to
Glenbard West or York, I think we both felt that there were two clear
favorites, and both Glenbard West and York were definitely good enough in the right
situation to win this game. But they needed a lot to go right,
I felt, and that didn't materialize in either of the game. Both Lincoln
Way East and Loyola control them throughout. It just it just kind of played
out, you know how we thought it would sue, you know, like
you I mean, I definitely felt like Lincoln Way East and Loyola was likely
to be the state the Class A state championship matchup coming out of this game.
What I did not expect was that both of these teams would would really
kind of take a part the other team in winning these games. I thought
they would be relatively competitive on both sides of that bracket. But you know,
for Lincoln Way East, it was just another example of how they're just
able to take advantage of everything that has thrown their way. I mean,
I laughed when I saw that quarterback Brandon Tissue had a ninety nine yard quarterback
sneak for a touchdown. Yeah, I think I've seen the video. It
was a quarterback sneak that we're trying to get out of the shadow of their
own goal line. Was happy to take a couple of yards, and then
all the sudden, Brady Titcher sneaks out of the pile and is gone.
Just I mean, like, I don't see ninety nine yard plays very often.
I definitely don't see them materializing like that. But that is what Lincoln
Ways does. That small window of opportunity, Let's just crash right through there
and make it happen. So just typifies what they're doing. And then on
the other side, Loyola. I mean, I thought that that York would
need a herculean effort to get by them. Not impossible, but boy,
that defense for Loyola is really cranking it up as we go through the postseason
here that they're set in the tone and Loyola, as they always do,
despite the fact that they've had some injuries in their backfield, continue to do
what you know, put the pieces in the right places. And when you
have a quarterback that is as savvy and as experienced as Jake Stourney, the
combination of those things make Loyola a very very difficult team to try to beat
right now, and it will create what I think is the eight A matchup
that I think if you were to say what's going to give us the best
eight A state championship at the beginning of these brackets, these would have been
the two teams that I think you should have picked. And now we have
it. Okay, well, let's go ahead and get out of here too.
Before I throw it over to you to give us a final thought,
though, are you know what you shall are? What we learned in week
thirteen or the state semifinals from seu's posted it up on Friday Night Drive this
morning, And something I hadn't even realized and didn't think of that all sixteen
teams that are at state going to Champagne, every single one of them has
made at least one appearance in a state championship game since the twenty fourteen season.
As you said, there are no Cinderellas here, you know, even
even Nazareth that five and four, even Providence at five and four. These
are programs that are used to playing deep into playoff rounds. So, you
know, surprising, yes, but makes sense. Yeah, We've talked a
lot about it being kind of a you know, the favorites have materialized in
one. I think there's no better case study to prove that theory correct than
what we have right here. Is that. I mean, every one of
these matchups has a team that is pretty familiar with the experience of playing for
a state championship game right now. There's, like I said, there are
a few of them that has been a little bit longer, but I mean
the longest one out is Providence, and I mean they've been to this will
be their fourteenth state championship game, so I mean, it's not like that's
a drought or anything. So it really kind of speaks to the fact that
this year has been a year where the teams that we thought were going to
be in this mix largely ended up being in this mix. All right,
let's go ahead and get out of here. South. Thank you everyone who
joined for this super salized episode of the Friday Night Drive podcast. Make sure
you stick to Friday Night Drive all week long, get ready for the state
championship, and follow us throughout the weekend. Of course, on Friday and
Saturday, we got an entire crew going down to stay. We even got
the Friday Night Drive House, the Airbnb ready to go. We're gonna have
a fun time down there, the group of us bringing you wall to wall
coverage, suits, anything else before we get out of here. You know,
Semi final week rarely disappoints, and it certainly didn't this year. There
were a lot of intriguing stories. There were some games that did get out
of hand, but you know, for the most part, when I sat
down and I looked at Hey, what State final matchups would I like to
see? Just from an intriguing standpoint, Almost all of them materialized the way
that I kind of hoped that they would from a competitive standpoint. So that's
all you can ask for in this situation, and it should be a very
entertaining weekend in Champaign. Stick around. Josh Wellgee and Jake Marlston will be
by to fill you in on their Western with the Western Suburbs podcast. Sus
and I'll be back. We'll drop it on Wednesday afternoon. We'll have the
state preview or State Final preview for you. We're gonna go ahead and sign
off for now for Steve Susy. I am Kyle Niaghbors. Everyone enjoy the
week. We'll talk to you on Wednesday. Schweiker, Gannison, Krizak RUNDEO
proudly sponsors the Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike Krizak. If you've been injured,
we are ready to take on the insurance company and get you to the
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