Saturday’s clash between West Suburban Silver titans Hinsdale Central and Glenbard West did nothing to disappoint an overflow crowd of more than 7,000.
In the end, Glenbard West proved to be king of its own hill, running out the final 5:35 to earn a 28-25 victory in the conference opener in Glen Ellyn.
‘‘This was as big as Week 3 gets,’’ Glenbard West coach Chad Hetlet said. ‘‘I had [Hinsdale Central coach] Mike DiMatteo at my house for dinner last Saturday night. This has been a huge rivalry long before the two of us were coaching in it.’’
The No. 8 Hilltoppers (3-0, 1-0) led 21-17 after an 83-yard touchdown pass from Hinsdale quarterback John Whitelaw to Alex Kirk. After an exchange of punts, Glenbard West got on the board when junior lineman Jordan Walsh fell on the ball which came loose near the goal line, for a touchdown that made it 28-17.
Then, Whitelaw engineered a drive for the No. 6 Red Devils (1-2, 0-1), capped by an eight-yard scoring run by David Lutz. A two-point conversion pass by Whitelaw made it 28-25 Glenbard with 5:35 to play. The drive included a fourth-down conversion run by Whitelaw, who threw for 221 yards and ran for 81 more.
The Hilltoppers took over at their 18 after the kickoff. But despite an illegal use of hands penalty and two holding calls, Glenbard West got three first downs, none bigger than a 20-yard run on a delay by Nick Burrello.
‘‘That run was all because of [quarterback] Tyler Warden,’’ Burrello said. ‘‘He just made a huge block and I just to to follow. At the end of the week, it means we are 1-0. But this means so much to coach Hetlet [who came from Hinsdale Central].’’
‘‘We overcame a lot in the last couple of minutes,’’ Warden said. ‘‘I’m really proud of our o-line. Those guys carried us and killed it against one of the best teams we’ll see all year. You never want to get too high with a win this early and you never want to get too low.’’
Hinsdale took the opening kick and drove the field to set up a 27-yard field goal by Lutz.
Glenbard’s first possession ended with a Mac Burridge interception. After the Hilltoppers defense forced a punt, its offense started at its 8 and a false start put it back to the 4. Then, an 18-play drive was capped by a nine-yard scoring run by Adam Bruere.
An interception by Glenbard’s Cody Olsen led to a 31-yard touchdown run by Burrello to make it 14-3.
“We had been trying to work on the strong side sweep,” Burrello said. “That was all [lineman] Mike Sandoz. He made it easy for me.”
But Whitelaw was 4-for-5 for 54 yards in a late drive capped by a 19-yard scoring pass from Whitelaw-to-Kirk with 27.3 seconds to play in the half.
The Hilltoppers took the second half kick and drove 63 yards, scoring on a 29-yard pass from Warden to Burrello to go up 21-10.
‘‘I just don’t understand why these two quarterbacks aren’t being recruiting,’’ Hetlet said. ‘‘Those are special kids. They’re winners and they both a have a good upside.
‘‘John Sigmund has done a great job with our offensive line. He won two rings at Wisconsin playing on Rose Bowl teams. I was just confident at the end that we could keep the ball, because I thought that our offensive line played real well.’’
Glenbard also saw of junior running back Trace Revie Sorey, son of former Bears lineman Revie Sorey, return to the line up.
‘‘I don’t have words to describe the end of this except that we played a chess game,’’ Hetlet said. ‘‘When someone takes something away, you have to find something else. Yeah, we have about seven talented kids playing in the backfield, But no one knew any of their names last year. It just comes from pure work and today we needed [running back] JT Mesch and [Steve] Jones on defense to rush Whitelaw and having Sorey back from an injury helped.’’
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