Thorpe, Marmion making all the right calls

DANVILLE -- It was the type of decision that sports talk radio could second guess for days. If Lovie Smith made it, they'd talk about it for weeks if not months.

Fourth-and-1, three minutes to go, clinging to a 31-28 lead with the ball at midfield. That's where Marmion found itself Saturday leading its Class 6A semifinal at Danville with no less than the school's first trip to state on the line.

You have as good of a hard-nosed runner this area has seen in years in T.J. Lally, and you have a punishing offensive line to run behind. Get that one yard and your opponent burns its last two timeouts while the clock ticks closer toward zero.

Three-time Super Bowl champion coach Bill Belichick has gone for it in a similar situation, and he's done it with worse field position, needing 2 yards instead of 1, without a near sure thing to hand to like Lally and Peyton Manning on the other sideline.

He's also not an old school Midwesterner like the Cadets' Dan Thorpe.

“I'm still a good old boy from northern Wisconsin and we're going to punt the ball and play defense,” Thorpe said. “I'll be doggone, it almost backfired but it is hard for high school kids to go 90-some yards.”

Thorpe did say he's gone for it more this year than previously in his career, which includes a state championship at Grafton, Wis. He'll get a chance to add an Illinois title Saturday at 1 p.m. when the Cadets (12-1) try to beat their third straight unbeaten team, Rockford Boylan (13-0) in the Class 6A state title game in Champaign.

But he didn't go for it Saturday. When kicker extraordinaire A.J. Friedman lined up to punt there were “Go for it!” calls coming from a huge Marmion crowd that traveled 3½ hours and cheered non-stop.

And those fans weren't alone.

“I wanted to go for it,” said Nick Scoliere, a senior two-way starter. “I was talking to kids. We tried asking Coach Thorpe but he held by his guns and did what he felt was right for the team. You can't argue with the man. He has brought us to this point.”

It certainly wasn't a no-brainer decision. Putting the ball back in Danville's hands, and specifically Edward Clark's, was a dangerous proposition. The only time Marmion had stopped the Vikings in nearly the previous two quarters was when Clark fumbled going into the end zone other than that he looked like Barry Sanders in his prime shredding the Cadets to an average of 14.6 yards a carry in the second half plus a 95-yard kickoff return.

Friedman, whose 37-yard field goal held up as the winning margin, pinned the Vikings at their 5-yard line. Yet a mere 1:30 later that explosive Danville offense already had driven 90 yards for first-and-goal at Marmion's 5 poised for the winning score until a holding call negated the 29-yard play that put the Vikings there.

Scoliere's sack and Kyle Kozak's interception on the next two plays made Thorpe's punt call work out perfectly. That's fitting for a team that is an overtime loss to Class 5A finalist Montini from being perfect.

“We have extreme confidence in both sides of the ball,” Scoliere said. “A couple people might have said they felt uneasy but we are a good team and good teams find ways to win no matter what they do.”

Besides the natural fan impulse to go for it, there were a couple logical reasons fans and players tried to lobby Thorpe. None more so than a powerful runner like Lally, whose 164 yards on 17 carries not only kept him right on his ridiculous 9.5 average per carry this year but puts him at an area-best 1,264 rushing yards and 16 rushing touchdowns.

Danville coach B.J. Luke, the longtime former Waubonsie Valley coach whose children were Division I players in football and women's basketball, said Lally looked as good in person as he did scouting.

“He looked like a tough kid on film,” Luke said. “When you get this far you expect to see tough kids.”

Of Marmion's four playoff wins, the two thrillers both came on the road. If not for Ryan Glasgow and Scoliere teaming up with Kozak, Lally and Mike Currie to stuff Thornton Fractional South's 2-point conversion in the final seconds of a 28-27 win in round two, there wouldn't have been such a memorable victory Saturday, not to mention all the fun this week getting ready for state.

“The away games are especially hard, traveling and playing in environments you haven't played in against teams from conferences you haven't heard of,” Marmion quarterback Bobby Peters said. “That's always tough but they haven't heard of you either.”

They have now. Getting to state for the first time in school history does that to a program.

“I talked to couple guys from ‘76, ‘73,” Scoliere said. “We have seniors from last year's team that are back here. The whole Marmion community is really coming together behind us. It's unbelievable, a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

I can attest to that community coming together, whether nearly getting trampled by the students pouring out of the stands to celebrate Saturday's win or passing five full school buses of fans along I-74 on the way to the game.

They are turning out to see a senior class that is being rewarded for their work during the off-season.

“This senior class is outstanding,” Lally said. “We are all so close. We didn't let each other for the past three years not go to the weight room. The previous classes had maybe let some kids go to different weight rooms each week. We all made sure we were coming to the weight room, we got on each other's cases. Now it has paid off more than we could have ever imagined.”

Marmion's state trip continues an interesting trend. While it might not bode well for area teams come 2011, the “even” years sure have been good lately. That starts with Geneva's breakthrough semifinal team with its miraculous comeback quarterfinal win at Freeport in 2004.

It certainly has continued in 2006 with Batavia going to state for the first time, and a double dose in 2008 with Geneva in Class 7A and Aurora Christian in Class 4A and now Marmion in Class 6A in 2010.

Not too shabby of an every-other-year trend for our little slice of the state.

Marmion can up the ante this weekend, doing something each of those three great teams listed above couldn't win on the turf at Memorial Stadium.

“We all feel blessed and honored that we are the first team to ever to make it state at Marmion Academy,” Lally said. “There have been some great players to come through here. To be the first to make it to state is an incredible honor and we couldn't be happier right now.”

jlemon@dailyherald.com