Football: Schaumburg rallies past Prospect

Trailing for nearly every minute of the first three quarters, Schaumburg's football team lived up to its motto at George Gattas Memorial Stadium on Friday night in Mt. Prospect.

A fourth-quarter trick play saw quarterback Deontae Arnold flip the ball in the backfield to Marcus Ross, who then threw a 36-yard touchdown strike to receiver Hezekiah Trotter, giving the Saxons their first lead of the night at 21-17 - and it held up for the final score in the Mid-Suburban League crossover.

"We talk about grit and we demonstrated it today," said Saxons senior running back and defensive back Jordan Salgado. "Grit is our motto."

"We were gritty as heck," said Schaumburg coach Mark Stilling. "They kept fighting, kept fighting and kept fighting. We kept talking that we've got some guys who can be explosive but we understand that's not going to be the case every play.

"I can't say enough about our defense and the way they fought. We shouldn't have even been in that game the way we played on offense."

Prospect's offense kicked in right from the start as QB Jimmy Martin (102 yards rushing and 6-of-6 passing) marched the Knights 80 yards on the opening drive, capped by junior Michael Shafis' 15-yard TD run with 9:05 on the clock.

A 34-yard field goal by Anthony Santangelo gave Prospect a 10-0 lead with 4:30 left in the opening period.

The score stayed that way until the third quarter when Schaumburg got on the board on Salgado's 9-yard TD run with 7:01 on the clock.

Prospect came right back and built the lead to 17-7 thanks to a 76-yard drive capped by Martin's 21-yard TD pass to Nick Ergastolo with 3:44 left in the third quarter.

Schaumburg (1-1) answered with a 66-yard drive ending with Arnold's 14-yard TD run around the left side that made it 17-14 after Johnny Mueller's extra point with 0.06 seconds left in the third quarter.

The Saxons' defense continued to flourish as it held Prospect (1-1) to 1 yard on a fourth-and-2 from the Knights' 35 early in the final period. Linebacker Connor Casamento Barry had a big hand in the stop.

The very next play was Ross' touchdown strike to Trotter down the east sideline and into the north end zone with 9:44 left in the game.

"It was a jet pass and I couldn't really see Marcus but I put my hand up and he said he saw me," Trotter said. "When he out the ball up there, I just said I had to make a play for the team. We were down and had momentum going so I wanted to finish it for the team. Once I got past my defender, I knew it was my ball all the way."

The Saxons' defense then took care of the rest.

"Big ups to the defense stepping up big-time for us," Trotter said. "They could have broke at the end but they stayed strong the whole time. They held them to 7 points after the first quarter so they kept us in the game."

Salgado had a big QB sack at the Knights 1-yard when he blitzed on a second down play with under two minutes left in the game.

However, Martin found Matt Neal for a 46 yards on the next play with 1:13 left.

But three plays later, on fourth and 1 near midfield, Jacobs Bishop and Logan Knox converged on Martin and the ball went back to the Saxons with under a minute left.

"We made some adjustments at halftime and started shutting things down," Salgado said. "It was all our coaches, the d-line and linebackers. Connor Barry made an awesome play and Victor Olaitan (safety) was filling the alleys. They were doing tremendous jobs.

"This just boosts our confidence. We had a terrible first game but we didn't hang our heads. Now we're just going to try and ride this wave."

On offense, Salgado finished with 64 yards from 17 carries.

"Jordan was a workhorse," Stilling said. "He didn't step off he field offensively or defensively. He's about as tough as they get and our freshman (Mike DiGioia) made some big plays, too. And Marcus (Ross), too, coming in and finishing a drive when Deontae got hurt, and later making the throw on the jet pass."

Prospect coach Mike Sebestyen wants to see more improvement.

"This is part of our learning curve right now," he said. "We're a little behind and we've got to learn how to finish a football game. That goes back learning to finish in practice. We practiced much better this week and we played much better this week, especially offensively. Our defense is playing its tail off. But we can't keep leaving them out there."

Miller and Shafis combined for 168 yards rushing.

"Jimmy can run, and Michael, too," Sebestyn said. "It's a nice double threat back there. We've got to continue to improve our passing game. We'll go back to the drawing board and go to work. That's part of the job. These kids are resilient, which is good. We'll hopefully continue to improve."