Perfect ending

Maine South's Charlie Goro celebrates the Class 8A championship in November. Goro will be headed to play quarterback at Vanderbilt in the fall.
(Steve Johnston/Staff Photographer)

December 4, 2008 By RICK BEHREN Contributor

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It was the perfect ending to a perfect season.

Maine South did what it does best to win the Class 8A state high school football championship Saturday night at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Their playmakers made the big plays and their defense came up huge on more than one occasion. When all was said and done the Hawks brought the state championship trophy back to Park Ridge with a stunning 41-21 victory over Hinsdale Central.

A huge grin spread over the face of head coach David Inserra as he looked down at a final statistics sheet after the game. "That's what really stands out," he said as he pointed to the 14-0 final record his Hawks achieved. "No Maine South team that has ever won a state championship has gone undefeated before. This is a proud moment for my team, my coaches, myself and the entire community."

And what a finish to an unblemished season it was. Maine South never trailed in the title game, but it needed some offensive surprises and some defensive heroics to come out on top against a very talented Hinsdale Central squad.

One of the unexpected offensive occurrences for the Hawks came from senior quarterback Charlie Goro, who ran the ball more times than he passed it. He set a title game rushing record in the process, gaining 164 yards on 25 carries while scoring one touchdown. The previous record was 148 yards by Steve Walker of Lockport against Stevenson in 2002. Goro threw for only 132 yards and a score as he completed 9-of-14 passes.

Goro may have even overshadowed a fantastic performance from junior running back Matt Perez, who ran for 119 yards on 18 carries and scored three touchdowns in the process.

It was Perez who got the Hawks going midway through the first quarter, however.

On first-and-10 from the Hinsdale Central 41-yard line, the speedy Perez blew by the defense and scored with 3 minutes, 57 seconds left in the first quarter. Joey Orlando kicked the extra point and the Hawks led 7-0 after the five-play, 77-yard drive.

That lead would be short-lived, however, as Hinsdale Central came back with an eight-play, 64-yard drive of its own that ended when Red Devils junior quarterback John Whitelaw hit Alex Kirk on a slant pass for a 10-yard touchdown, knotting the score 7-7.

The Hawks marched right back down the field after that score and took a 14-7 advantage on another touchdown burst by Perez, this time from 7 yards out.

Whitelaw showed his skills again as he scored on a 3-yard run over left tackle to complete a seven-play, 70-yard drive and trim his team's deficit to 28-14 with 3:22 remaining in the third period.

With just over seven minutes to play in the final quarter, Maine South's offense struck again. This time, Goro hit Alviti with a 22-yard touchdown pass. The extra point was missed, pushing the lead to 20 points at 34-14 with half a quarter to go.

Hinsdale Central wasn't about to give up and marched down the field on an 82-yard drive behind the left-handed passing of Whitelaw, who completed 17-of-29 passes on the day for 262 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

The southpaw completed tosses of 7, 9, 19, and 14 yards before finding Alex Kirk in the end zone for a 30-yard touchdown, cutting the Maine South lead to 34-21.

The Hawks quickly got back those points, taking 5:45 off the clock as Perez scored his third touchdown of the day on a 1-yard run up the middle, making the score 41-21 and giving the Hawks their first state championship since 2000.

"We have a great youth football program in this town that these kids grew up in and it's a good system to get these kids ready for high school football," Inserra said. "That's why this championship is for the entire community - the youth football coaches, the players and the fans."

Inserra said he knew his team would have to be able to run the ball against Hinsdale Central but didn't expect to do it as much as they did.

"It was working, so we kept at it. That's what they were giving up and even though the pass was there, we were happy to run the ball," said Inserra, who has finished as runner-up three previous times for the state championship. "Charlie was finding some running lanes and they gave us the look on defense where we thought we could get the most from our running game."

Goro said he hasn't run so much in a game since last season.

"Some of my runs were supposed to be pass plays where I had to scramble but I gained some yards on many of those, too, so the run was working," Goro said. "We came in thinking we would have to throw the ball 40 or 50 times, but things changed. I was having fun, running, using my speed, getting outside. I'm really glad the way things turned out."

Orlando proclaimed after the victory, "I'm speechless, this is just unbelievable."

Perez said he knew early the running game would be a success.

"They held me down a bit for a while, but we just had to be patient and keep plugging away," he said. "We did that and it worked for us. They have a lot of big guys on their line who hit pretty hard, but our offensive line took care of business and did a great job for us."