Football: Kaneland, Montini meet again in semis

Updated: November 15, 2011 6:50PM

It’s like déjà vu all over again. – Yogi Berra

Saturday’s Class 5A state football semifinal game features the same teams, on the same field, on nearly the same date and time as last year’s semi — won by Montini 27-14.

Last season, the Broncos were 10-2 and fresh off a win over Marian Central, facing a 12-0 Knights team.

The victory propelled the Broncos to their second straight 5A state title.

This year, the Broncos are 10-2 and dominated Marian last week to face a 12-0 Knights squad which hopes to reach the championship game for the first time since 1998.

“It does help having played these guys before,” Kaneland coach Tom Fedderly said. “It’s not going to be something that’s real different for these kids in some way. It’s not going to be playing someone we don’t know about. Obviously they’re a tremendous team and it’s going to be a big challenge. But, as far as us coaches go, there are some things that we’ve been looking at all year long, looking at the film from last year and things that we could’ve done better.

“We get another shot at them.”

The biggest difference between these teams this year is that the Kaneland defense has been rebuilt around young players while the Broncos offense has become the state’s most explosive under senior QB John Rhode, a transfer from Marian Catholic in Chicago Heights.

Rhode missed the first 5½ games of year due to a broken right thumb, a stretch in which Montini went 4-2 and averaged 28.5 points per game. Rhode offered a glimpse of what was to come in only playing the second half of the St. Francis game in Week 6, tossing three TDs.

In the six full games Rhode’s played since, the Broncos are unbeaten and averaging 54.0 points per game. Rhode has thrown for over 2,000 yards and an astounding 34 touchdowns in that span.

“With John back in the offense, everything has opened up a lot more,” Montini’s Nebraska-bound receiver Jordan Westerkamp told Sun-Times Media. “We’ve been executing, coaches have been making great calls, we’ve just been adapting to defenses.”

The maturing Knights defense has been adapting itself all season. Through its first seven games, Kaneland allowed 12.9 points per game and won by an average of 31.7.

Over its last five games — all against playoff teams with a combined record of 37-18 — the Knights are allowing 27.2 points and have won by an average of 6.4. In the playoffs, Kaneland has won by an average of just 5 points.

Last year’s team didn’t play a game decided by fewer than 15 points until the quarterfinal. The experience may help the Knights write a script much different than the one authored by the Broncos a season ago.

“Last year was a special year,” Fedderly said. “We had a lot of older playmakers and some of the games were a little easier. But we knew that coming into this year. That was a different team. The normal mindset is we’re going to keep it close in the fourth quarter and we’re going to pull it out. That’s something we’re real proud of, that we’ve been able to do that. Being able to win close games at the end tells you that you have a good team.”

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