Flag football: Glenbrook South denies Carmel state berth

For the second year in a row, Carmel came up a bit short in the finals of the flag football sectionals.

The Corsairs built an early lead, but couldn’t withstand a second half onslaught by Glenbrook South as the Titans rallied for a 27-18 win Tuesday in the sectional final at Buffalo Grove.

Glenbrook South (17-2), which was seeded second, will meet Central Suburban South conference rival Maine South in the state quarterfinals at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park. Maine South advanced by beating Evanston 7-0.

Carmel (21-2) was the top seed at the Buffalo Grove sectional. But the Corsairs, who lost in the sectional title game to Fremd last year 24-20, had their 16-game winning streak broken Tuesday.

Carmel quarterback Josie Hartman, who as a senior has gone 30-5 over the last two seasons, said Tuesday’s loss was hard, but that her and her teammates are proud of their accomplishments.

“This doesn’t define who we are as a team,” Hartman said. “I am so proud to be part of this team. Things just didn’t go our way. We got down on ourselves and it is tough way to go out.”

Carmel coach Ben Berg said his team had to fight its way through am extremely difficult sectional.

“Last year was our first year and we were still getting used to it,” Berg said. “This year we had different expectations obviously. We knew this was the one of the best sectionals with seven ranked teams. We knew it was going to be tough and every game was going to be hard.”

Carmel looked like they were going to make it look easy.

The Corsairs scored on their first few possessions on the same type of play.

Hartman hit Grace Booher over the middle on a short pass. The junior then quickly turned to the outside and was off on a 65-yard jaunt to make it 6-0 just over two minutes into the game.

Carmel struck again quickly on its next possession after an interception by Booher. Three plays later, it was Maliyah Mays who caught the same type of hook route. Mays also turned on a dime and turned it into a 70-yard scoring play for a 12-0 lead.

It stayed that way until late in the third quarter when Glenbrook South opened the floodgates.

The Titans scored four consecutive touchdowns with Addison Gracia passing to Val Wilke for one score. Cooper Godbout then ran for three touchdowns in the fourth quarter as the Titans opened up a 27-12 lead with 1:14 left.

“I thought we did a nice job early,” Berg said. “We hit a few big plays. They scouted us well and they did a nice job against our run game. But we missed a couple extra points that we needed to get.”

Carmel, which had struggled offensively after the first two touchdowns, showed that it still had something left. The Corsairs went 86 yards with Hartman (10-of-30 passing for 278 yards) throwing to Colleen Graham for a touchdown on the game’s final play.

“I knew the game was over,” Hartman said. “But that kind of defines who we are as a team. We want to go out strong.”