Rolling Meadows 22, Buffalo Grove 17

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Rolling Meadows' hopes of being one of the final 256 football teams in the postseason were realized Friday night.

The Mustangs defense forced a Buffalo Grove safety with 46.1 seconds remaining and Meadows recovered the onside kick to punch its ticket into the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season. The Mustangs advanced to the postseason for the 10th time in school history and had to win three straight games to do it.

Meadows won 22-17 at Buffalo Grove while protecting a three-point lead after BG's Kevin Mulligan scored his second rushing TD of the season in the third quarter on a 42-yard draw play.

Meadows (5-4, 3-2 MSL East) advanced to the Bison 8-yard line with 2:13 to play but could not punch it in. However, BG (3-6, 1-4) could not move the ball and faced 4th-and-20 from its own 5. That's when J.P. Kulick ran the ball into his own end zone for the safety with 46. 1 seconds to go.

BG kicker Brian Akialis then attempted an onside, but Rolling Meadows' covered the ball.

"We've got a lot of heart on this team," Meadows senior receiver Mick Viken said. "(Tonight) we were able to finish."

Steve Orchell and Viken (6 catches, 136 yards) caught TD passes of 39 and 42 yards on Jim Garoppolo's second and third pass attempts of the game. The Bison scored twice in the second quarter on Kulick's 21-yard pass to Josh Hampton and Akialis' career-long 37-yard field goal with 8.6 seconds before the half.

The Mustangs took a 20-10 lead on Daquan Edwards' 5-yard TD run to cap Meadows' first drive of the second half after Orchell returned an interception 28 yards.