Rise and shine: Lake Zurich gets by Fremd

The alarm clock went off again at 7:39.

It had been going off all throughout the night.

But this time, the Lake Zurich offense didn't hit the snooze button.

With 7:39 left in the fourth quarter of their season opener against visiting Fremd on Friday, the Bears suddenly went from sleepy to wide awake. Scoreless up to that point, they went on to score three straight touchdowns to rally for an improbable 20-10 victory that probably kept them wired and giddy well into the night, just as a few Mountain Dews before bed would.

"Our whole team is about being relentless, not giving up," said Lake Zurich senior linebacker Tim Sayre, who capped off the excitement with a 25-yard interception return for a touchdown with 43.8 seconds to play. "This is really exciting for us. And this was a vengeance call for us a little bit."

Fremd narrowly defeated Lake Zurich last season, 10-7. After Lake Zurich scored its first touchdown, an 8-yard run by Mike Shield that capped off a four-play, 45-second drive with 6:54 left, Lake Zurich was still behind 10-7.

The way the Fremd offense began to control the ball on the next possession, it looked like Lake Zurich was in for the exact same fate as last year, perhaps with even the exact same score.

The Vikings used rugged running back Justin Wallace (31 carries, 107 yards, 2-yard touchdown) to grind away at the Lake Zurich defense and the clock. But a Fremd penalty in the middle of the drive changed everything. The Vikings suddenly looked out of sync and eventually turned the ball over on downs at the Lake Zurich 29-yard line with 2:25 left.

Eight plays and just slightly more than a minute later, the Bears were at it again, more awake than ever.

Quarterback Zach Till ran in a touchdown from 4 yards out to give Lake Zurich a 13-10 lead with 55.6 seconds left.

"The offensive linemen had a great cutback lane and I just followed it," said Till, who came up big in his first varsity start at quarterback. Last year, Till started at cornerback while also seeing a little bit of time as the backup quarterback. "It felt amazing (to get into the end zone). It was frustrating in the first half. But we came out in (the fourth quarter) and started executing our plays and it felt great. It was like it was finally all coming together."

Sayre's interception for a touchdown was the cherry on the sundae and came just 12 seconds after Till's go-ahead score as Fremd tried to quickly move the ball down the field in the passing game. Besides the interception, Fremd quarterback Richard Concialdi was tough to stop, connecting on 17-of-31 passes for 221 yards.

"They out-punched us those last six or seven minutes," Fremd coach Michael Donatucci said. "And we didn't respond. It was a battle all the way and our kids proved we can beat a very good team.

"Quite honestly, I think we got tired. They were in better condition than us and it showed at the end."

Gregory Lombard and Connor Pfister were big targets for Concialdi. Lombard caught 5 passes for 116 yards while Pfister caught 4 passes for 93 yards.

Meanwhile, Till completed 4-of-8 passes for 91 yards, including a big 25-yard connection with Jacob Brinlee that set up Lake Zurich's second touchdown.

Brinlee also gained a game-high 111 rushing yards on 16 carries.

"We were playing hard the whole time but we were making a lot of mistakes (in the first three quarters) and we were hurting ourselves," Lake Zurich coach Bryan Stortz said. "It's really hard to get into a rhythm when you're doing that. We finally snapped out of it."

Not pushing the snooze button again helped.