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Mike Menozzi JolietCatholicFootball.com
No one told me the old Illini-8 was back . . . how did this happen without me knowing about it? Ok, it’s not back really but, it very well could have been after the “old time” football played on Friday night.
It’s October, it’s raining and Joliet Catholic and Marian Catholic are involved in an epic struggle – I could be describing any one of several dozen games between these two rivals. Marian was well prepared for tonight’s game, and Catholic was inexplicably jittery at the beginning of the game.
A steady rain made for a sloppy field “Well there goes the field for the rest of the year” said Coach Sharp, “We were doing ok up until now.”
The weather played right into Marian’s game plan. Their big offensive line on a sloppy field would be trouble for the Hillmen, and it was.
The Hilltoppers started with a bang, after a McKeon 9 yard run, Clancy broke off a 58 yard run to the 9 aided by a roughing the QB penalty against Marian. On 3rd and 9, Kiernan hit Eastman who was covered like a blanket in the middle of the endzone for a TD. Platt missed the extra and JC was leading 6-0 with 9:35 left in the first quarter.
Marian established a ball control offense by pounding away at the middle of the JC line. The Spartans offensive line was very effective driving the JC defensive line into the backfield, quite often getting 4 and 5 yards a run. If Marian wasn’t running the ball with success, they were exploiting the seams with quick passes.
Marian QB Zach Denny was successful throwing out of a shotgun sporadically, his long ball throws were typically off target, but the short stuff was on the money, and nearly always caught.
Catholic stopped Marian and took over with 6:31 left in the 1st quarter. After a Benson run for 4, and a motion penalty, a fumbled snap gave Marian the ball on the 32 yard line of JC.
A QB sneak of 20 yards brought eh ball to JC’s 3, sophomore Cliff Gordon scored to tie the score and the kicked extra point put Marian up 7-6. It was the first time this season that Catholic was trailing in a game.
On the ensuing kickoff Catholic had only 10 men on the field but Eastman still managed to return the ball to the 49.
A run for nothing and an incomplete pass, followed by a motion penalty on JC, Benson ran a draw for nothing and Catholic punted to the 18.
Catholic stopped Marian and took over after receiving the punt at their own 44.
Benson for 4, McKeon for 5, McKeon for 6 put the ball at the Marian 42 and it was the end of the first quarter.
While the rain was coming down intermittently up to this point, it was at the end of the 1st quarter that it began to rain steady, and consistently the remainder of the game.
Benson ran for 9 but Catholic was called for holding, Clancy ran it to the 20, McKeon to the 5, Clancy to the 2, and Benson in for the TD with 9:57 left.
JC attempts it’s first 2 pointer of the year. Benson runs it up the middle and powers over Marian’s Michael Buxbaum at the two for the extra points. JC 14- MC 7.
After Marian took over at the 20, Jeske blitzed Denny and sacked him back to the 15. Walter Fischer made a great one handed catch and brought the ball out to the 34. A run for 4, and a screen that Jeske stuffed, followed by a bomb that was incomplete.
Catholic took over on the 35, leading 14-7.
Clancy ran for 10, but Kiernan was sacked for a loss of 5, Catholic ran it out to the 45 but was faced with a 4th and 2. Clancy attempted the first down but was stopped, turning the ball over to Marian.
Marian’s drive was aided by an encroachment penalty putting the ball at the 32. Cranmer and (Homecoming King) Bayci combined for the sack, but an offensive pass interference forced a punting situation .
Catholic retuned the ball to the 34, before running out of time. Platt attempted a 51 yard field goal with 8 seconds left but it was tipped at the line of scrimmage, recovered by Marian and the clock ran out.
The second half
Marian received the kickoff in the second half and started at the 34. On a third and 3 an incomplete pass to Gordon appeared to retun the ball to the Hillmen. But on the play, Jeske was on the coverage and after assuming the receiver had caught the ball, he picked him up and planted him head first into the turf. The refs calls a penalty on Jeske, who couldn’t possibly be expected to know if he had caught the ball or not.
That gave Marian the ball at the JC 47, drove to the 32 and a swing pass in the flat was run in for a score, the kick tied the score 14-14 with 9:36 left in the 3rd.
After Eastman slipped down at the 15, McKeon ran for 11, Benson for 14, Clancy for 10 yards, Benson for 5, McKeon for 13 put the ball n the 27. Benson had a 30 yard run for a TD that broke 3 tackles, including a stiff arm at the 5 before taking it in.
The kick was good 21-14 6:44 left in the 3rd. That would be all the scoring in the game.
Marian turned the ball over to catholic at the 10 on a fumble but the Hilltoppers were unable to capitalize. Kiernan hit Eastman for what appeared to be a TD, but JC was called for an illegal man downfield. An incomplete pass finished the drive.
Marian converted a 3rd and 5 out to the 25, then converted a 3rd and 8 to the 40. A QB scramble and on the play Joe Stasko was shaken up.
Catholic stopped Marian on a screen pass on 4td down and took over on the 37.
Benson for 10 yards with 10:00 left in the game. McKeon for another 10 yards, Benson for 3 gave Catholic a 4th and 1 at the 40. McKeon attempted the 1 yard run for a first down and it failed.
Marian takes over at the 47. On 3rd and 3 a pass was complete to the 31. Another run for 5 on first down. Another 3rd and 5, was a pass incomplete, but once again the refs made a questionable call – making a holding call against JCA, not pass interference, but holding, giving Marian an automatic first down.
Marian had the ball at the seven yard line and the defense had had enough of the Spartans. They sacked Gordon for a 4 yard loss, then Adam Saxon forced Denny to throw before he wanted to setting up a 4th down. With 2:22 left Marian has a 4th and 4.
It what might be the biggest defensive play so far this year, Bobby Craven came clean on the edge and sacked Denny for a 10 yard loss on 4th down, preserving the undefeated season for the Hillmen.
The Hilltoppers ran out the clock and the game was over, the Hillmen winning 21-14 in a throwback game of the 1970’s against Marian.
“You have to give Marian a lot of credit for their defensive play, we knew it was going to be tough, they only gave up 21 points to Carmel, we were able to move the ball well at times, but we got into a weather situation that forced us to get right into our ground attack. We had a couple blitzes that hurt us and we had problems handling the ball at times in the wet weather. Those are things that we can clean up.”
“We came off a big win last week and found our selves in a dog fight this week, but the one thing that always holds true is the Hillmen find a way to win. The defense made a huge stop on 4th down and we ran the clock out. If this isn’t typical Joliet Catholic - Marian Catholic football . . .boy . . . this is what it’s all about.”
“A guy like Dave Matteo who I think is one of the best in the state, you know you’re going to get a well prepared football tema, and that’s what we got.”
“Our kids played as hard as they can and that’s what I want, you can’t fault the results if 100% of the effort is there.”
“The mistakes we made we can clean up, we can make those better, but the effort is always there from our kids.“
This time of year, in our league, in this kind of weather, you’ll get an opponent that gives you a game like this. It’s only going to make us stronger for the payoffs.
Defensively, it looked like they were able to control the line of scrimmage on us tonight? “They were much bigger than we were, and the wet surface played right into their hands. Our linebackers made great plays, the biggest play made by Craven at the end. But we blitzed more than normal to put pressure n Denny and it opened up some seams.”
It looked like they were attacking the same seams that Benet was last week? Yea, he (Matteo) did a great job of recognizing out blitz audible, and he exploited it. When we disguised our blitz we were successful with it. We need to do a better job of coverage, but they didn’t let anyone get behind them for a long completion, and they made Marian earn everything they got tonight.”
“The offense gave them the first TD, and then the penalty gave them the second TD, if not for those two things we probably shut them out.”
“Our defense played very well, I can’t believe they caught the ball as well as they did, give them credit, they were prepared.”
“This was a typical Marian Catholic Joliet Catholic game in the mud, and we found a way to win.”
“We failed to pick up some blitzes, we can fix that, I’m really happy with the effort our kids showed tonight.”
The defense did show up big tonight when it needed to, but a few things are worrisome.
Marian’s offense line controlled the Hillmen defensive line tonight, the Spartans had far too many runs of 4 and 5 yards on first down.
The blitz wasn’t disguised well enough enabling Marian’s Denny to throw to wide open slot receivers.
Offensively, Catholic failed to convert on three short yardage 4th down conversions, when was the last time you saw that happen in a single game?
True, there were Homecoming distractions, and there was bad weather, but if Catholic is going to run the table in the ESCC with Carmel waiting in week nine, they need to do much better than this or it’ll be 8-1 entering the playoffs. Not the end of the world (the Hillmen did win a title last year with the same situation) but given the amount of talent this team has, they should dominate beginning to end. Unless they get distracted from the big prize . . . an unprecedented championship number twelve waits if they can learn from their mistakes through the course of the year.
This will be a good test to determine what kind of leaders we have on this team.
Good luck the rest of the way, Hillmen – you’re 6-0 with 3 to go in the conference, then the second season starts – the playoffs.
Sophomores won 44-6 after running out to a 44-0 score at half.
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