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Wauconda 25, Vernon Hills 19

Glen Kozlowski didn't seem to mind the ice-water shower he received from of his jubilant Wauconda Bulldogs who outlasted Vernon Hills 25-19 in overtime Friday night.

On the contrary, neither the precipitously falling temperatures nor the howling winds could wipe the smile from the face of the victorious head coach. With the dramatic road victory, Wauconda improved to 7-2 on the season and 5-1 in the Prairie Division, good enough for second place and possibly a home playoff game next weekend.

For Kozlowski, this is the first time in his six-year tenure that Wauconda had made the playoffs and the first for the school since the 1998 campaign. But the final regular-season win came against a determined Cougar team (5-4, 4-2), which would have to wait for out-of-town scores to determine whether it would advance to the postseason.

"This win says a lot about us, but it says a lot about Vernon Hills, too," Kozlowski said. "We've played a lot of good games against them over the years and this win means that we can have a rivalry against them now."

The Wauconda victory was made possible mostly by virtue of its running game led by senior tailback Brad Wisniewski and a rugged offensive line. Wisniewski rushed 41 times for 179 yards and 4 touchdowns, including the game-tying score in the fourth and the winning plunge in overtime.

Though Wisniewski started fast with 130 yards in the first half, he gained just 49 yards on 2 carries after the intermission. And a 13-7 Wauconda lead at the half didn't hold up as Vernon Hills scored 12 consecutive points in the final period.

"Brad's our workhorse," Kozlowski said. "It all starts with him. We wanted to establish the run early and the way it was working early I thought we could keep riding him all night long. But that didn't happen."

Vernon Hills coach Tony Monken and his staff deployed nine-man fronts on defense and slowed Wisniewski and the Bulldogs considerably. And with 2:42 remaining in regulation the Cougars broke a 13-13 tie with a 70-yard pass play from quarterback P.J. Marsek to DaVaris Daniels. The 6-2 freshman wideout caught a short pass over the middle and broke a tackle before sprinting over 60 yards to the end zone giving Vernon Hills a short-lived 19-13 lead.

"That was a broken play and we actually had it covered pretty well," Kozlowski said. "But Daniels is the real deal and he made some people miss and that was it."

Daniels caught all 5 of Marsek's completions on the evening for 107 yards and the long touchdown.

Wisniewski answered that score with a punishing 25-yard run just over a minute later to tie the score at 19.

The wind played havoc with the football all evening causing both teams to miss a pair of point-after kicks including the final two of regulation to send the game into overtime where Vernon Hills place kicker Brian Smith missed a 25-yard field goal attempt off of the left upright.

That miss set the stage for Wisniewski and the Wauconda offense that took three plays to score the winning touchdown and set off a wild celebration on the Bulldogs' side of the field. They'll now wait for today's announcements of playoff sites and opponents to determine their next challenge.

"We played really well tonight and accomplished what we wanted to do," Kozlowski said, his khaki paints and purple and black shirt soaked through with frigid water. "Now we just go home and wait to see what happens. And I'm going to go right now because I'm freezing out here."

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