October 18, 2024
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What we learned in Week 11: CCL/ESCC dominant again in Round 2

League makes up 17 percent of the remaining teams in field

By Steve Soucie
St. Francis’s Domenic Beres fights into the end zone against Sterling Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023 in a class 5A playoff game in Sterling.

St. Francis’s Domenic Beres fights into the end zone against Sterling Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023 in a class 5A playoff game in Sterling. (Alex T. Paschal)

Although we were a round deeper in the postseason, in one respect, it seemed like the second round was simply a repeat of the first.

The CCL/ESCC continued its domination of the postseason, posting 11 wins in 12 tries in the second round. It leaves the 24-team conference with 17 percent representation of the remaining 64 teams still in the playoffs.

The league’s presence was most heavily felt in Class 5A. The conference went 5 for 5 in second-round games, and due to the geographic breakdown of the class, the option remains for the league to possess all four spots in the semifinal round. One of the five is guaranteed to be knocked out as Nazareth and Carmel will play in the quarterfinals.

Dominance was a word that carried over to the individual game results, too. In those five 5A games, CCL/ESCC teams (St. Francis, Nazareth, Carmel, Joliet Catholic and Providence) outscored their opponents 239-34.

Loyola and St. Ignatius are the lone Class 8A members of the field of 64 that will lock horns in the quarterfinals. That’s also the situation in Class 4A as St. Laurence and IC Catholic will tangle in a quarterfinal matchup.

Defending Class 7A champion Mount Carmel, and Montini in Class 3A, are the lone standing CCL/ESCC members in those classifications.

The only CCL/ESCC team to lose this weekend was St. Viator, which fell to Wheaton Academy in Class 4A.

The Sangamo Conference is the only other league in the state of Illinois that has three teams still alive in the postseason as Maroa-Forsyth, Athens and Olympia won this past weekend.

Conferences with two teams still in the fray are the Cahokia-Mississippi, Central State Eight, Chicagoland Christian, DuKane, Illini Prairie, Lincoln Trail-Prairieland Small, North Suburban, Northern Illinois-10, NUIC and Southern Illinois River-to-River Ohio.

Fantastic finishes

A number of second-round contests came down to the wire.

• In Class 6A, Glenwood and Richards had a classic dual. The two teams started the fourth quarter tied at 28 before Richards claimed a 31-28 lead with a field goal early in the fourth quarter. Glenwood took the lead back at 35-31 at around the six minute mark before Richards almost immediately answer with a score of its own to reclaim the lead a 38-35. Then, the game went into a flurry with touchdowns by each team over the final 1:13 and then Glenwood kicker Mia Gerger booted a field goal to send the game into overtime.

Glenwood then started the extra frame by scoring a touchdown and kicking an extra point, Richards quickly matched the touchdown but went for the 2-point conversion and the win but was denied, giving Glenwood a 52-51 win.

• In Class 1A, Greenfield scored with less than two seconds to play in the game to secure a 16-14 win over Casey-Westfield.

• In Class 3A, Roxana trailed by two touchdowns in the second half before scoring three consecutive touchdowns to reclaim the lead over St. Joseph-Ogden, 48-41. The Spartans then scored with seven seconds to play in the game before going for a two-point conversion but did not convert to allow Roxana to earn a 48-47 win.

• In Class 7A, Bradley-Bourbonnais was looking to upset No. 1 seed Normal Community and forced them into overtime in the attempt. Normal Community got the ball first in the extra frame, scoring a touchdown and tacking on the extra point. Bradley-Bourbonnais also scored a touchdown and went for the win on the road with the 2-point conversion, narrowly missing converting the pass, which sent Normal Community into the quarterfinals with a 31-30 win.

Running down history?

Byron posted another eight rushing touchdowns in its second-round victory over Peotone.

That gives the Tigers a whopping 88 rushing touchdowns as a team on the season. The Tigers could potentially play three more games if they reach the Class 3A sate championship making it well within reason that Byron could achieve something no other team in state history has ever done: score 100 rushing touchdowns in a season.

The Tigers are already in third place on that list and needs just six more rushing touchdowns to tie the state record of 94 set by Lena-Winslow in 2022.