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Backfield duo carries Carmel past Addison Trail
Updated: October 28, 2011 10:30PM
Brian Brennan had seen this story before and didn’t like the ending.
So he and his Carmel teammates tweaked the script for Friday night’s Class 7A playoff opener against Addison Trail in Addison.
Brennan ran for a pair of touchdowns on offense and helped Carmel’s prevent defense do its job in the closing seconds as the Corsairs held on for a 28-20 victory.
Jordan Kos ran 31 times for 167 yards and a touchdown for Carmel (7-3), which hosts the Crystal Lake South-Streamwood winner in the second round next week.
The Corsairs had to open the playoffs on the road because they had three close losses during the regular season, one-pointers vs. Joliet Catholic and Marist and a six-point defeat to defending Minnesota big-school champ Wayzata.
So imagine what was going through Brennan’s mind when Addison Trail (8-2) was marching down the field after taking over at its own 14 with 1:11 left and no timeouts. “It was pretty nerve-wracking,” Brennan said. “We’ve been in that situation, we haven’t come out on top. We know now what it feels like.”
Addison Trail quarterback Trevor Bermingham (19 of 33, 177 yards, one interception) completed five passes for 75 yards on the final drive to get the Blazers to the Carmel 11. But the Corsairs’ defense forced a pair of incompletions, the last as time ran out, to seal the win.
“The way I feel about it, we ran out of time,” Addison Trail coach Paul Parpet Jr. said. “We didn’t do some things in the first half that cost us at the end of the game.”
“They only gave up 48 points all year,” Carmel coach Andy Bitto said. “We knew it was going to be a battle. ... I took my blood pressure medicine this morning. That was probably a good thing.”
It was a battle, Brennan confirmed. “They came out and hit us hard,” he said. “It was hard to hold onto the ball. I’ve never been hit that hard.”
But thanks to an offensive line led by Mike Dyer and Shane Toub, the Corsairs were able to jump out to an early lead and maintain it despite the frantic finish.
Kos’ nine-yard run and Brennan’s first one-yard sneak gave the Corsairs a 14-0 edge with 3:15 left in the first half. But Anthony Messina’s 44-yard kickoff return set up his own one-yard touchdown run for the Blazers that made it 14-8 at the break.
Michael Panico scored from 14 yards out with 4:18 left in the third quarter and again Addison Trail struck quickly. Anthony Wisniewski took a short pass from Bermingham and turned it into an 80-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to 21-14 with 3:28 remaining in the third.
Brennan (20 carries, 78 yards) scored again from a yard out with 7:47 left in the fourth quarter and Bermingham threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Greg Schultz at 5:17 for the final margin,
“How many have we had like that?” Bitto said. “I told them at the end of the game, this is why we play a hard schedule, because in the playoffs we’re battle-tested.”
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