South Elgin plays confidence game on Neuqua
Friday night's Upstate Eight Conference visit by South Elgin to Neuqua Valley could have been looked at as a case study in what's more important to a football team, the lessons learned by Neuqua Valley in dropping two close games to open the season to highly regarded teams, or the confidence gained by South Elgin in crafting the school's first 2-0 start to a season.
For one night, at least, give the edge to "confidence" as the Storm shook off a 14-0 second-quarter deficit and ignored a stat line that saw it outgained 464-164 yards while allowing 32 first downs to post a 28-26 victory.
"The character of these kids is unreal and their will to win is unreal," said South Elgin coach Dale Schabert. "When we got to the end of the game, I was just overwhelmed. It's great to watch high school kids come out and play with such heart and grit."
The eventual game-winning points came on quarterback John Menken's 8-yard touchdown pass to Jake Kumerow with 7 minutes, 39 seconds to play, four plays after Menken found Domico Failla for 58 yards to the Neuqua 19 and one snap after the Wildcats (0-3, 0-1) were flagged for offside on a Storm field-goal attempt, gifting their guests a first down.
The Storm lead stood at only 28-20, however, leaving the Wildcats with plenty of time to chase the tying points. Neuqua crept within two when quarterback Joe Ippolito scored his fourth rushing touchdown of the evening, this one from 16 yards out. But with Ippolito looking to run the option as the Wildcats tried for the tying 2-point conversions, South Elgin's Derek Hurschman burst through the line and dropped him for a 5-yard loss.
Such heroics seemed out of the question midway through the second quarter as Ippolito tallied scoring runs of 1 and 2 yards for the 14-0 Wildcats lead. At that time the Storm (3-0, 1-0) had minus-15 yards of total offense, but Menken finally got untracked and when he hooked up with Kumerow from 29 yards out, the Storm trailed only 14-6 at halftime.
That gap was narrowed further on the second-half kickoff as Brad Birchfield scooted 89 yards to make it 14-13. Following Dillon Gardner's interception of Ippolito, Menken found Kumerow from 4 yards away on fourth down, followed by a fake PAT attempt that saw Sean McGill connect with Dan Heine for a 21-14 lead. The Wildcats got within 21-20 on Ippolito's 11-yard burst, setting up the frantic final minutes.
"It's never over, no matter how many yards we give up, we know the defense is going to get stops, and we know the offense will score," Menken said. "We stuck it to Neuqua Valley."
For Neuqua Valley coach Bryan Wells, the outcome was a replay of the first two weeks of the season.
"It's unacceptable, what we just did," he said. "For the third week in a row, we gave up a lead. Close never cuts it. There's no satisfaction in ever just being close."