Mt. Carmel ousts Glenbard North
Turns out Glenbard North football coach Ryan Wilkens had every reason to worry while prepping for Mt. Carmel's vaunted triple-option.
The 16th-seeded Caravan ran for 303 yards to 95 for No. 17 Glenbard North in a 42-15 win Saturday at Gately Stadium in Chicago. Mike Kennedy ran for 165 yards and 3 touchdowns, A.J. Lewis for 115 and 2 scores.
"You try to prepare for dive - stop the dive, stop the dive, stop the dive - then the quarterback keeps it. Or you're planning on going a hole wider and they hit it right up the middle on a trap play," said Wilkens, whose Panthers had averaged a 176-yard rushing edge over foes.
"It's very effective, it's hard to replicate in practice. We should have ran the ball a little bit better than we did today, but they outplayed us," he said.
Mt. Carmel (8-2) will face No. 1 seed Glenbard West, which beat Moline 49-10 on Saturday. Caravan coach Frank Lenti said his boys won't be intimidated going on the road, and Lewis didn't flinch when Glenbard North defensive back Tyrik Henderson stuffed Kennedy on Mt. Carmel's first play. Two plays later Lewis ran 59 yards to the Panthers' 24-yard.
Glenbard North (7-3) stiffened but couldn't stop a fourth-down conversion ahead of Lewis' 1-yard run to cap an 11-play scoring drive.
"Out there they were a pretty tough team. I didn't take them lightly at all because when I came out here the first hit I took I was like, all right, it's time to strap it up and play," Lewis said.
Kennedy's 37-yard run set up his own 1-yard touchdown run for a 14-0 edge at 2:01 of the first quarter.
"They're really good at it," Glenbard North linebacker Alex Taylor said of the option scheme. "They're fast, quick. They're just a really tough team."
The Panthers caught life, running backs Devion Hodges and Vittorio Tricase answering with a 10-play scoring drive. Hodges broke 6 yards inside guard Joe Vazquez's kickout block, and Steve Adamatis' kick made it 14-7 at 9:45 of the second quarter.
Mt. Carmel added a late second-quarter touchdown for a 21-7 halftime lead, but with the ball to start the second half Wilkens believed a score could get his team right back into it.
Instead, Mt. Carmel scored twice in five offensive plays to grab a 35-7 lead with 6:10 left in the third quarter.
Forcing Glenbard North to the air, not its strength, Mt. Carmel iced Tricase and Hodges, limiting them to 59 and 52 yards rushing, respectively, after each had averaged more than 100. The Panthers' Niko Falco ran for a 13-yard touchdown in the waning seconds.
"We couldn't really get anything going until towards the end of the game," Hodges said. "By that time it was too late."