Football: Naperville Central looks to stay on roll vs Bolingbrook

Updated: November 17, 2011 7:41PM

According to dictionary.com, redemption can be defined as either deliverance or as atonement for guilt.

Redemption is also perhaps the best word to describe the seasons that Naperville Central and Bolingbrook have enjoyed up to this point.

With both programs coming off five-loss campaigns, both entered the season unranked by the Chicago Sun-Times and with modest outside expectations.

For Naperville Central, those modest outside expectations carried through a six-win regular season and the No. 9 seed the IHSA handed it on Oct. 22.

Those outside expectations have gotten a serious jolt in the last three weeks as Naperville Central has opened some people’s eyes in reaching Saturday’s Class 8A state semifinal against second-seeded Bolingbrook in Naperville. Kickoff is 1 p.m.

“We just want to prove something after last year, not making the playoffs,” said senior linebacker John Dulleck, who leads the defense with 104 tackles. “Now we’re making it to the semifinals. We just want to keep it going and go as far as we can.”

En route to scoring 40 points in a third straight postseason game after putting up 42 on Homewood-Flossmoor last Friday, Naperville Central has reached a state semifinal for the first time in 10 years.

Winners of five straight games, Central (9-3) has topped the 40-point mark in four consecutive games and is playing nothing like the team that struggled so mightily offensively through the middle part of its DuPage Valley Conference schedule.

“On offense, we like to get on the board early. When we do that, it kind of gives us momentum and it gets our defense into the game a lot better,” Redhawks’ senior quarterback Ian Lewandowski said after the victory over Homewood-Flossmoor. “When our defense gets us turnovers, they’re giving us great field position, giving us the option to run a bunch of different type of plays — pass, run, everything, so the defense doesn’t know what’s coming at them sometimes because we have great field position.”

After throwing for more than 100 yards in three games during the regular season, Lewandowski has recorded his three best passing outputs of the season during the last three weeks.

More impressively, the Redhawks put up the 42 points against Homewood-Flossmoor without much production from senior running back Matt Randolph, who has run for 1,699 yards and 22 touchdowns this season.

Randolph, the DuPage Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Year, ran 10 times for 66 yards and a touchdown in the first half against the Vikings before leaving the game as a precaution after suffering a quad injury late in the first half.

After the game last Friday, both Randolph and Stine said he would be ready to go in Saturday afternoon’s Class 8A state semifinal.

But as much as the recent developments on offense have gotten the attention of opponents, it is Naperville Central’s defense that has carried the weight for much of the season.

Allowing an average of 12.1 points a game, having forced 10 turnovers in the postseason and with the test of Homewood-Flossmoor senior quarterback Tim Williams behind it, Naperville Central’s defense now will look to stop Bolingbrook junior quarterback Aaron Bailey.

“The strength of our team is our defense. In playoff football, you’ve got to have a good defense,” Naperville Central coach Mike Stine said. “(Friday night against Homewood-Flossmoor), our defense stood up and maybe let everyone know that we are pretty good. I don’t know how much credit we’ve gotten all year, but this is a darn good defense.”

Finishing the regular season 8-1 and entering the postseason as a No. 2 seed in the Class 8A bracket, Bolingbrook (11-1) probably had designs on playing in a state semifinal when the postseason commenced.

Bailey, who has 2,511 yards of total offense and 36 touchdowns this season, is the biggest reason the Raiders are in their first state semifinal since 2001 and fourth overall.

Going up against a Bolingbrook offense averaging 37.6 points a game, 14 could be a magic number for the Redhawks, much like it was last week. Limiting a potent Homewood-Flossmoor offense to a season-low 14 points, the Raiders’ season-low offensive output also sits at 14 points, which they posted in their only loss of the year, a 20-14 defeat to Lincoln-Way East on Sept. 30.

“He (Bailey) really is a very patient kid with that offense. He makes a lot of plays with his feet, but he makes plays because he makes the right read and the ball is usually where it’s supposed to be,” Central defensive coordinator Mike Ulreich said. “Not only is he a great athlete, but he seems to be a great kind of orchestrator of that offense.”

While no one will question the vast athleticism Bolingbrook possesses on both sides of the football, Naperville Central has reached the sixth state semifinal in program history relying on several different individuals on both sides of the ball.

With three dominant postseason victories behind it, it’s going to try and keep relying on the aspect that has made it good all year long — the team — as it looks to reach its fourth state title game in program history.

“(Bailey is a) great player. He’s a great player. We’re gonna have our hands full,” Stine said. “He’s one guy. We’re gonna have to play responsibility defense, but, again, just like last week. (Homewood-Flossmoor senior quarterback Tim) Williams is a great player, also.

“It doesn’t just fall on our defense. It falls on our offense. It falls on our special teams. This team has won as a team. We’ve won as all three phases. That’s what it’s gonna take this week against Bolingbrook. We gotta be strong in all three phases of the game.”

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.