Campanella keys Montini victory
Nick Campanella and Montini home watching the playoffs?
Forget about it.
Campanella scored 4 touchdowns in a 42-27 Suburban Christian Conference crossover win over Wheaton Academy on Friday at Wheaton College. The win all but clinches Montini's 17th straight postseason berth.
"We knew we were in for a fight tonight," said Campanella, no stranger to the playoffs from his days at Driscoll, "but we came out and did what we had to do. We weren't going to let it slip away."
Their backs to the wall, the Broncos (5-3) hit big play after big play.
Ryan Gorrell broke off a 53-yard touchdown run on the game's opening drive. Wheaton Academy tied it twice, the second time at 14-14 on a 19-yard keeper by quarterback Brian Pell with 6:16 left in the second quarter.
But Montini answered in four plays, Campanella taking a shovel pass from Broncos quarterback Brandon Pechloff and going 37 yards for a 21-14 game.
Pechloff, who completed 12 of 17 passes for 264 yards, hit Campanella for a 55-yard touchdown on Montini's next drive to make it 29-14 at the half.
Campanella, who caught 6 passes for 143 yards, later hauled in a 21-yard strike from Pechloff.
"You can't key on one guy in our offense," Campanella said. "You can try, but then the other person is going to make a big play."
Wheaton Academy (5-3), playoff eligible after a win over Immaculate Conception last week, pushed Montini to the limit.
A 2-yard Kai Libby touchdown run set up by a spectacular Jimmy Johnson 24-yard reception tipped by a Montini defender made it 36-27 with 8:18 left, the extra point blocked.
Warriors kicker Sam Cote recovered his own onside kick, but a Wheaton Academy drive stalled inside Montini territory. A Ross Ferraro sack forced a punt, and Wheaton Academy's next possession ended with Montini's third interception.
"We needed this win," Montini coach Chris Andriano said, "and it didn't come easy and it came at a cost, losing Jordan Westerkamp to a knee injury. But our kids showed a lot of guts tonight."
Pell completed 24 of 39 passes for 277 yards and 2 touchdowns for Wheaton Academy. Anthony Ritchie had 8 catches for 116 yards, including an acrobatic 31-yard catch off a tipped ball that set up a score.
"When you have a back-and-forth game like this, it's going to come down to who makes the least amount of mistakes," Warriors coach Ben Wilson said. "In the end they made the least amount of mistakes and we didn't capitalize on their mistakes as well as we could have.
"But I'm really proud of our kids. We played them better than any other team on our side of the conference. We played well enough to beat most other teams on our schedule."