Too much Brinlee, Lake Zurich for Meadows

While Jacob Brinlee's season may have launched into orbit Saturday night for Lake Zurich, Jimmy Garoppolo's illustrious career came to an abrupt and disappointing end for host Rolling Meadows in their IHSA Class 7A football playoff opener.

But make no mistake, both knew that Lake Zurich's 16-6 win was a product of team success, or failure to execute, respectively.

"Jake's done a great job for us all year," said Lake Zurich coach Bryan Stortz said of his 5-foot-10, 170-pound junior who rushed for 229 yards on 28 carries. That included a 70-yard, multiple-cutback dash for the game's opening score.

However, Stortz added, "He'll be the first one to tell you those guys up front did the job for him."

And for the whole team, as Lake Zurich's 246 yards of total offense was entirely on the ground.

Brinlee's running behind guys like Mark Herman, Gus Coon, Steve Garcia, Mike Schnur and Collin Lennon helped set up all of Lake Zurich's scores. That included the Max Methling field goal for a 9-6 halftime lead and Devian Ruiz' 4-yard TD run in the third quarter that gave the No. 11 Bears (7-3), who host No. 3 Crystal Lake South (9-1) in the second round, the extra cushion they needed.

And while Lake Zurich's offense kept Garoppolo and Co. off the field much of the night, when they were on it, they didn't exactly tear it up any more than it already was, that is.

"Not at all," Garropolo concurred after a lengthy, long-faced and for some a tear-filled players' only gathering broke up in the south end zone after the game.

He credited Lake Zurich's ability to disguise its defenses as one ingredient that made a difference.

"They were shifting around a lot," he noted, sometimes even after he'd audible at the line of scrimmage. "It was confusing at times."

But that was not the saddest part of the game for him. After two stellar years on a team that "worked harder that any team I've seen," he noted, he'll miss "the atmosphere on game day" and everything that goes with it, he said.

"We really thought we'd make a run in the playoffs," he said, after "the defense played great. Couldn't ask for anything else."

Well, maybe better field position. Kevin Looff's punting and Stortz's decisions to punt even on Meadows' side of the 50 paid off in a decided field-position advantage throughout the second half especially.

That helped them take Meadows out of any running game. With their shifting defenses, they picked off Garoppolo four times (Mike Shield twice) and held him to 9 completions in 25 attempts for 154 yards. Robby Wilson, J.J. Raffelson, Andy Blechschmidt, Jack Lynn, Kevin Gratys and Mark Tabaka kept pressure on him, too, and blanketed his usually sure-handed receivers.

Meadows got its only touchdown on Erick Louis-Charles' 4-yard jolt on the possession after Brinlee's 70-yard lightning strike. It was Meadows' longest and virtually only sustained drive of the night, on which they had 4 of their 10 first downs for the game.

"Too many drops, too many mistakes," said Meadows coach Doug Millsaps, whose team finished 7-3 and has now lost close games twice in the last three years to Lake Zurich.

"The coaches put us in good situations," said Garropolo, then admitted he and his team didn't capitalize on them after turnovers, penalties and field position ultimately decided the game.

"Our kids came out and played very hard," said Stortz, who showed them some inspiring game film from the 2007 team's run to a state title, key word, "run."

"That's what we've been doing all season," said Brinlee.

And now Meadows knows it too.