Buffalo Grove overcomes mistakes, rallies to defeat Hoffman Estates

Buffalo Grove it found itself looking at a two-touchdown hole late in the first half in Friday night’s football season opener at Hoffman Estates.

Fortunately for the visiting Bison, they found the necessary momentum and turned it all the way around to earn a 21-14 win over the host Hawks.

"Last year was not a good year (3-6) and we wanted to come back," Bison junior quarterback Nathan Raef said.

"We were hungry for this game, and honestly we wanted it more. It was just capitalizing on mistakes and not getting down (from) our mistakes. It's how you respond."

Hoffman Estates (0-1) took advantage of a pair of miscues from Buffalo Grove in the first half with the first coming off a muffed punt snap that gave the Hawks the ball at the Bison 20. That turned into a 4-yard Shion Dailey TD toss to Mason Walker for a 7-0 lead.

The Hawks advantage became 14-0 after being given a short field to work as Dailey connected with T.J. Bond from 19 yards out with 3:18 remaining until halftime.

It was there that the visitors responded with a 10-play, 78-yard march that senior running back Matthew Kaput (20 carries, 115 yards) finished with a 4-yard scoring jaunt with 15 seconds left until halftime, pulling Buffalo Grove within 14-7.

After an interception by sophomore linebacker Alex Glenn, Raef took advantage of a missed coverage in the Hawks defense to find Matthew Hong for a 54-yard scoring strike that evened the score at 14-14 with 22 seconds left in the third.

Raef found Jaleel Marshall for the game-winning score, a 69-yard connection with 9:43 to go.

The Bison held off a pair of Hoffman Estates drives down the stretch to seal the win.

"We had a lot of guys step up in different positions that I'm super proud of," Buffalo Grove coach Jeff Vlk said. "We knew it was going to be a hard-fought game."