St. Edward loses Homecoming heartbreaker
The St. Edward football team could not ask for much more after being down 15 points with 7 minutes remaining Friday night.
After a touchdown and 2-point conversion to get within 7, the Green Wave had two possessions, both starting in Aurora Christian territory. But the Eagles turned back St. Edward both times, including stopping a first-and-goal from the 5, to beat the Green Wave 29-22 on Homecoming at Greg True Field in Elgin in a Suburban Christian Conference crossover.
"We asked way too much from our defense tonight. I'm not going to lie," Eagles coach Don Beebe said. "We kept giving them a short field the whole fourth quarter. We won the football game tonight because of our defense."
St. Edward (4-1) trailed 29-14 with 6:56 left and got the ball at the Eagles' 31-yard line. The Green Wave took just 52 seconds to score on a 10-yard pass from Ben Lehman to Mark Olenek. Luke Duffy ran in the 2-point conversion to make it 29-22.
Aurora Christian (4-1) was forced to punt on a three-and-out. St. Edward took possession at the Eagles' 37 with 5:26 remaining. A 14-yard run from Lehman and an 18-yard from Maurece Jackson got the ball to the 5. After two runs, Lehman threw two incompletions to give the ball back to Aurora Christian. After one first down, the Eagles again were forced to punt.
The Green Wave got the ball at Aurora Christian's 49 with 52 seconds left and no timeouts. St. Edward got one first down, but its final two desperation passes fell incomplete.
"We tried to stay with the run, which is what got us down there," Green Wave coach Mike Rolando said of the goal-line stop. "We were a little too predictable and that's my fault. We've got to put that in the end zone. The defense stepped up and kept giving us opportunities."
The Green Wave took a 7-0 lead with 3:24 remaining in the first quarter on a 1-yard run from Lehman, who completed 18 of 38 passes for 191 yards and rushed for 54.
Aurora Christian responded by scoring on its next three drives. Mitch Holtz, who had 75 yards rushing, had touchdown runs of 2 and 3 yards and took a screen pass from Anthony Maddie for a 33-yard score with 1:34 left in the first half and a 21-7 lead.
"The past couple of weeks we've come out anxious and made some dumb mistakes," Maddie said. "This time we played a little more relaxed."
St. Edward cut the deficit to 21-14 before half on Jackson 10-yard run. Maddie, who was 19 of 27 for 317 yards, connected with Chad Beebe, who had nine catches for 143 yards, for a 63-yard score and Andrew Cassara ran in a 2-point conversion for a 29-14 Aurora Christian lead with 6:40 left in the third quarter.