Letdown in Lemont for Antioch
With a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head, Cameron White looked perplexed as he searched for a way to explain what just happened.
The Antioch football team had spent a vast majority of the season taking very good care of the ball.
Against Lemont on Saturday night, the exact opposite was true.
The visiting Sequoits fumbled the ball away four times.
"Fumbles happen, I guess," said White, a 1,700-plus-yard running back who had one of the fumbles. "I don't know what you can say about it other than that. I don't know what happened to us out there today."
The rare fumbles led to something else Antioch wasn't accustomed to.
Lemont scored off of three of the fumbles en route to a 38-14 victory in Class 6A state semifinal action. The 13-0 Indians, who finished second in the state last year, advance to Saturday's state championship game at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign. They'll face Sacred Heart-Griffin, a 24-17 winner over Providence Catholic.
For the Sequoits, the loss was their very first of the season.
Still, their 12-1 campaign was a turnaround for the record books.
After trudging through a 3-6 season just one year ago - and an 0-9 season the year before that, Antioch steamrolled through the North Suburban Conference Prairie Division this fall for the school's first undefeated regular season since 1983. Then, the Sequoits provided their fans with thrill after thrill in the playoffs, including overtime wins over Highland Park (second round) and Glenbard South (quarterfinals).
No one on their sideline was ready for the magic to end. But even just moments after it did, some already had a firm grasp of the bigger picture.
"Other than a state championship, this was the best way we could go out," said senior quarterback Matt Romani, who was on one end of a botched exchange that led to a fumble. "There's only one thing better than what we just did. It's been a really great season and I'm not going to forget any of these guys.
"Last year was fun. I made a lot of friends. But nothing was like this year. The winning helped, but, really, it was just the people."
Antioch's unraveling started early in the second quarter with the bad exchange between Romani and fullback Steve Lorenzini. Four plays later, Lemont was in the end zone on an 8-yard touchdown run by Danny Hayes, who rushed for a game-high 179 yards on 31 carries.
But the Sequoits answered less than a minute later when sophomore sensation Vinnie Holm broke free for a spectacular 63-yard touchdown run.
"That's the best play. I score on that every time," said Holm, who also had a fumble in the game. "The fumbles were hard to get past. They just get in your head. I know they got in mine."
The Sequoits suffered through a heavy dose of mental torture as the second quarter wound down.
With about six minutes to go, an 11-yard Antioch punt gave Lemont excellent field position in Antioch territory. Seven plays later, the Indians scored on a 1-yard run by Hayes.
"It seemed like if they weren't starting drives on our 30-yard-line, they were even closer," Antioch linebacker Tom Gerstner said of the Lemont offense. "We were put in some tough positions."
It would get only tougher.
Two plays into Antioch's very next drive, Holm fumbled. Six plays after that, Lemont scored again on a 1-yard quarterback keeper by Nick Lawrence. That gave Lemont a 20-7 lead with 37.7 seconds left.
When Antioch got the ball back, the unthinkable happened. White fumbled on his own 36-yard line and Lemont recovered.
"That's huge," Hayes said. "The defense was always coming up with huge turnovers. We had great field position. We knew we had to score. The offense knew we had to capitalize on those turnovers."
With 2.3 seconds before halftime, the Indians did just that and were celebrating in the end zone again - this time on a 20-yard touchdown pass from Lawrence to Lee Taylor. Add in a two-point conversion and Lemont's halftime advantage ballooned to 28-7.
"That was the gift right there. I was like, 'I don't know if we can come back from all that,'" Antioch coach Brian Glashagel said. "The fumbles really hurt. It's not like the regular season where you can get away with that. At any level of the playoffs, as soon as you turn the ball over, it's pretty much like automatic points."
Lemont was stuck on automatic after the break, too.
On the first drive of the third quarter, the Indians marched 62 yards in less than 2 minutes to dig Antioch's hole even deeper. Lawrence connected again with Taylor for a 4-yard touchdown pass.
"That was like getting stabbed (in the heart)," said Romani, who scored on a 1-yard run later in the third quarter to give Antioch a glimmer of hope.
Even then, though, the Sequoits were still down by three touchdowns at 35-14.
Lemont put the final nail in the coffin with a 22-yard field goal by Mike Orszulak with 4:47 left in the game.
"I feel like (crud) now, but I'll sit back, we'll all sit back and we'll be like, 'This was a great season. This team really did come out of nowhere,'" Glashagel said. "I don't know how many people took us seriously in the beginning. But by the end, it was fun. These kids, it was so enjoyable to watch them. They never gave up."