McHenry 25, Jacobs 14
Jacobs' hopes of reaching postseason play for its second time in as many years were crushed when it visited McCracken Field in McHenry Friday night. The Warriors posted 259-yards on total offense and 25 points in the first half. That was more than enough to bury the Golden Eagles 25-14 in a Fox Valley Conference Valley Division game.
"It was a matter of turnovers and big plays in the first half," Jacobs' coach Dean Schlueter said. "We had some opportunities throughout the game and we did not take advantage of them. (McHenry) is a good football team and our hats are off to them."
McHenry did not waste anytime getting on the board on its first possession. On the third play on its opening drive, Warriors quarterback Tyler Marunde connected with Mark D'Angelo for 55-yards. D'Angelo had 5 catches for 107 yards and 2 touchdowns.
On the ensuing drive, Jacobs was looking to even the score as it drove the ball 52 yards down the field. The drive ended abruptly when Golden Eagles (3-5, 1-3) quarterback Kyle Magnuson was hit hard and lost the football. McHenry's linebacker Jon Lesniak recovered the fumble.
Jacobs had the ball in the red-zone 6 times throughout the game and was only able to score twice. The remaining possessions all ended in turnovers.
"I was just more frustrated than anything. We were in the red-zone four times tonight and couldn't score," said Golden Eagles running back Darius Bowers, who rushed the ball 22 times for 130 yards and scored a touchdown. "What else can we possibly do? We kept having long drives and long drives and just couldn't put the ball in."
The second half of the game was controlled mainly by Jacobs' defense. After shutting down the high-powered offense of McHenry (6-2, 3-1), the Golden Eagles still were unable to get anything going offensively.
With 1:15 remaining in the game Jacobs' scored its second touchdown when Bowers ran the ball in from 16-yards out. The Eagles looked then to make things interesting when Bobby Molinaro, who scored the first touchdown for Jacobs, recovered an onside kick. Warriors' defensive back Mike Soto squandered all hopes of a miracle comeback when he intercepted Magnuson's pass
"I thought we grew up some tonight," Schlueter said. "We didn't give up and we played hard the entire game. We just didn't play well enough. I am really proud of how we responded by being down. We were down by three scores and came back. We gave it a shot but just didn't get it done."