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Addison Trail withstands late Glenbard South rally

Addison Trail stopped a late Glenbard South 2-point conversion attempt and held on for a 22-20 victory Friday night in the teams' football season opener in Addison.

"We made plays when they had to be made," Blazers coach Paul Parpet Jr. said. "We stopped them on the 2-point play, we stopped them on fourth down, we convert a fourth-down play. A lot of good things, but there's going to be a lot to fix too."

Glenbard South took a 14-13 lead on Nick D'Ambra's 1-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, but the Blazers (1-0) regained the lead on a 29-yard Stevan Jones field goal. Nick D'Ambrose's 17-yard touchdown run made it an 8-point margin in the fourth quarter.

"It was pretty tough at first," Blazers senior center Jack Simko said. "The first game of the season is always tough. Offense had to establish some ground. A lot of new faces on the O-line. But we picked it up, we found our drives and we scored and capitalized on everything."

The Raiders (0-1) answered with an 11-play, 60-yard drive capped by T.J. Springfloat's 6-yard touchdown pass from Jack Crouch with 2:53 to play. The Raiders tried to run for the 2-point conversion, but the Blazers defense stopped the attempt just short.

"Oh, I was scared," said Simko, who watched the play from the sideline. "I was scared. Thank God our defense picked it up. The defense capitalized, made a good stop."

He wasn't the only one whose heart skipped a beat.

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to take it if it's eight more weeks of that," Parpet said. "We'll see. But it was exciting, and that's what Week 1 is. It's exciting. You never know what to anticipate going into the game. You're hoping that you prepared the right away. This series against Glenbard South, for us and I know for them, has been a great series for four years. Every one of the games has been exactly like this."

The feeling is mutual.

"As we were shaking hands I said to Coach Parpet, let's make sure we keep this going," Raiders coach Ryan Crissey said. "It's a great first game. It boils down to execution and being fundamentally sound. Defensively, we weren't very fundamentally sound. Very basic things hurt us."

For the Blazers, it also was a great way to celebrate senior night.

"Coming back from a 4-5 season last year, this is awesome to get a victory right off the bat," Simko said.

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