Spartans think positive, and come back to beat Montini
Count another victory for the power of positive thinking - and for history-making St. Francis.
Trailing No. 1 seed Montini by seven points with seven minutes left in their Class 5A semifinal in Lombard on Saturday, the Spartans forced 3 turnovers and fullback Stan Bobowski capitalized on each to give No. 4 St. Francis an audacious 28-14 comeback win.
The sequence started when St. Francis halfback Mark Kachmer dropped a handoff and Montini's Ross Ferraro recovered at the Broncos' 29-yard line.
"That was going to be it," said Montini coach Chris Andriano. "I thought we had them."
But so did Kachmer.
"At that point," he said, "I'm thinking we're going to do something on defense that's going to get us an opportunity to win, and it happened."
Montini fumbled on the next play, and St. Francis' Ryan O'Donnell recovered. Bobowski ran once for 20 yards and again for a 9-yard touchdown. Matt Krese's kick tied the score 14-14 with 6:15 to play.
St. Francis cornerback Brett Robinson then forced a fumble and Bobowski returned it 30 yards to Montini's 3. His 1-yard dive over guard Ryan Spatz had the Spartans up 21-14 with 3:46 to play.
St. Francis (11-1) pounded the last nail when Dave Sufranski's interception led to Bobowski's 2-yard touchdown run between Spatz and tackle Russell Kalfas. Bobowski added insult to injury when he sacked Tom DiCristina on Montini's last offensive series.
"We had the momentum second half," said Bobowski, who ran for 93 of his 107 yards after halftime. "We were just clicking on all cylinders and our offensive line was doing a great job along with (Jeff) Reckards and his play-action passing."
Montini (11-1) led 14-7 at halftime, DiCristina tossing touchdown passes to Christian Westerkamp and Brendan Shannon. In between Reckards threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Robinson.
Montini, which beat St. Francis 41-21 in the regular season, had a touchdown brought back on a penalty during a Shannon fumble return and also threw 2 first-half interceptions, all in the first half.
"I was hoping that wasn't going to come back and haunt us," Andriano said of those lost chances, "and sure enough it ended up it did."
St. Francis earned a program-record 11th win and its first state semifinal berth. Next week the Spartans will host No. 7 Kankakee (8-3), a 36-21 winner over Morris.
"They want to win a state championship," said Spartans coach Greg Purnell. "Right now the way they're working and the way they've come together and the way we're playing defense we might be able to get it done."