Football: Waubonsie Valley claims unwanted place in history

Updated: October 31, 2011 7:40PM

All the way up in Crystal Lake on Saturday afternoon, people were chattering about the fact a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1.

“Did you see that?”

“Wow.”

They were common sentiments.

Unfortunately for Waubonsie Valley, it was the No. 1 seed on the wrong end of that conversation following a 14-7 loss to Belleville East on Friday night.

Since the IHSA moved to the 1-through-16 seeding format in 2006, the Warriors are the first No. 1 seed in Class 8A to lose in the first round. In all, only three other No. 1s have lost since — Rockford Christian in 4A last year and Geneseo in 5A and Chicago Christian in 4A in 2006.

From 2002 to 2005 there were four No. 1 seeds per class, and in 2004 No. 1 Andrew lost to No. 8 Sandburg.

“Eight-and-1. At home. You got what you wanted,” Warriors coach Paul Murphy said. “We’re up 7-0 at the half and we don’t score a point (after). We can’t get the ball, we have two or three possessions in the second half. They did a great job keeping it away from us. Even though we didn’t score (on a fourth-down play from the Belleville East 22), there’s seven minutes to go in the game — get a stop and get us the ball back. We never got the ball back.

“I thought they played with much more intensity and much more urgency than our kids. This is how we played in the Bartlett (loss in Week 3). I thought we were over the Bartlett game but obviously we had another effort like that in us. What can you say? You’re going to get beat if you don’t play to the level you need to.”

The Warriors could have easily lost more convincingly — the defense created turnovers inside its own 10 on two occasions in the first half.

“We took the 16th seed for granted,” Waubonsie linebacker Austin Lacke said. “That’s what went wrong. We just didn’t come out like we usually do.

“The first half we didn’t come out ready to play. The second half we tried to pick it up but it was too late.”

One of the issues the Warriors had Friday night was junior QB Dylan Warden struggled with decision-making within the triple-option offense.

“There were a few too many where he changed the play on me,” Murphy said. “That’s a young quarterback and he’s got to learn. He thought he saw something that wasn’t there. He called an audible we don’t even have (at one point). That stuff goes on when you’re dealing with juniors. We’ve got some great seniors, but our skill guys are mostly juniors on offense and he hopefully will learn from this and make better decisions next year.”

Eagles hoping Morris OK

Staying healthy is nearly as important as playing well for playoff football teams to make a long run.

Aurora Christian coaches and fans, alike, had some nervous moments in Saturday’s 35-8 win over Kewanee.

In the first quarter, senior linebacker Kenny McCracken hobbled off the field with an apparent ankle injury. He had it re-taped and after testing it on the sideline, returned in the second quarter and made several big plays.

“Me and him, we’ve been like 1-2 in tackles all year long,” senior linebacker Mitch Holtz said. “He’s my guy. It was good to get him back. I don’t like it when I don’t have him in there.”

“I thought we were gonna lose him,” relieved Aurora Christan coach Don Beebe said.

Early in the third quarter the Eagles had another player go down when quarterback Anthony Maddie had the ball stripped from his hands and knocked out of the end zone for a safety.

Senior right tackle R.J. Morris was down in the end zone when the play ended.

He was helped off the field and spent the rest of the game on the bench, icing his knee.

“He has an MCL strain, hopefully, that’s all it is,” Beebe said. “We’ll have to get an MRI on it next week and hope that he’s feeling better. He’s our right tackle and was the lineman of the year in our conference. He’s 6-3, 291. We can’t afford to lose him. That’s a big loss.”

Glasgow wouldn’t miss it

Leading the pregame warmups for Marmion Academy on Saturday afternoon was big No. 74, senior lineman Ryan Glasgow — even if he couldn’t quite raise his arm above his head for jumping jacks or stretches.

Suffering from a tear in his shoulder, Glasgow has missed time the last few weeks and was considered “out” for the playoffs unless Marmion made an unexpected run.

But there he was, mixing it up in the trenches the entire game during the Cadets’ 49-0 loss at Prairie Ridge.

“I wasn’t going to sit my last game on the bench,” he said. “It’s just more about wanting to help your team to win.”

The corner of Cadets coach Dan Thorpe’s mouth quivered when speaking of the effort Glasgow put forward to get on the field.

“(He’s) a Division I athlete and when the bell sounded — and it was totally up to him and his family — and he decided to play,” Thorpe said. “Division I athletes do that.”

Glasgow is considering offers from Vanderbilt, Brown, Penn, Wyoming and Northern Illinois among others.

“I have a lot of options,” he said. “I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to do.”

Kaneland’s run game clicks

Faced with moving the ball against stingy Belvidere pass defense Friday night, Kaneland’s game plan was to run the ball.

The first carry went for a long touchdown.

The next four carries were runs and opened up the field for sophomore quarterback Drew David to find receivers on two 15-yard strikes to Sean Carter and Quinn Buschbacher.

But when Kaneland forgot why it was having success and went pass, pass, pass, the offense stalled. David went five straight pass attempts without a completion.

“We knew we could run,” David said. “First half, we were just stopping ourselves. We knew if we got back to the run game we could hit some big plays and get back in that end zone.”

Coming out of halftime, David and Jesse Balluff carried the ball 63 yards on the ground, which opened up David’s nifty 14-yard pass to Zach Martinelli on a rollout. The defense came up to stop David and Martinelli snuck to the back left corner of the end zone.

“I think our pass and running games complement each other very well,” David said. “We can’t always rely on the pass to win us game. We can’t always rely on the run to win us games. I think the past couple games we might have been relying on the pass too much. Today, we decided we were going to pound it and win it with the run. And that’s what we did.”

Mooseheart can earn
primetime exposure

The Red Ramblers’ second round game against Peru St. Bede is up for a vote as NBC’s “Prep Destination of the Week.” Each Friday morning the network broadcasts live on location showcasing a different area of Chicagoland during “NBC 5 News Today.”

Viewers can vote at the “NBC 5 News Today” Facebook page. Track the voting before the polls officially close at noon on Wednesday, then watch “NBC 5 News Today” on Thursday at 6 a.m. for the results.

The games the Mooseheart and St. Bede faithful have to out-vote are Brother Rice at Downers Grove South and Crystal Lake South at Carmel.

The station is asking students and fans to dress up with all their school spirit, bring signs and be ready to cheer. You can find all the information at www.nbcchicago.com, keyword “Prep Destination.”

Rick Armstrong and Brian Miller
contributed to this report.

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