Marian Central can’t hold early lead in loss to Aurora Christian

WOODSTOCK – While the playoffs do not officially start for another three weeks, the Marian Central Hurricanes football team approached Friday night’s game against Aurora Christian as if it was the postseason.

The Hurricanes entered the Chicagoland Christian Conference game with two wins on the season, so they knew they needed to win out to have a shot at the playoffs.

And while Marian took an early lead, Aurora used a high-powered offense to earn a 34-27 win.

Marian had a dream first quarter. Aurora received the opening kickoff, but its drive ended when Marian’s Vance Williams recovered an Eagles’ fumble. On the second play of their first possession, Mike Schmid took the handoff and found a lane down the sideline for a 45-yard touchdown run, giving the Hurricanes an early 6-0 lead.

Marian’s defense created another opportunity for the offense when it forced an Eagles’ turnover on downs. Once again, the offense capitalized as running back Eddie Kowalczyk took a fourth-down handoff and scored on the 6-yard run, putting the Hurricanes up 13-0.

The Hurricanes defense once again stopped Aurora’s offense, and Kowalczyk found the end zone once more, this time with a 5-yard run, to extend the lead to 20-0 in the second quarter.

“The linemen were great, I had really big lanes to run through, and it felt great to get out to that lead,” Kowalczyk said.

Aurora, however, is known for having a high-scoring offense and it provided plenty of proof of what that offense could do.

The Eagles (5-2, 3-2) scored two touchdowns in the final 1:30 of the first half and did it with big plays. Quarterback Asa Johnson hit receiver Jonan Miceli with 44-yard touchdown pass for their first score. Then, only a minute later, Johnson connected with Miceli again, this time from 69 yards to give the Eagles the momentum heading into the break.

“We had some really big plays right before half that changed everything for us. This team has a lot of character and they showed it tonight, and I was proud how we battled to get through that first quarter,” Aurora Christian coach David Beebe said.

To start the second half, Johnson threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to River Kovarik, and later in the quarter Vinny Delgado added a 15-yard touchdown run to give the Eagles their first lead of the game at 27-20. Aurora’s final touchdown saw the third touchdown pass from Johnson to Miceli to make it 34 unanswered points. Johnson finished the game 19-of-35 passing for 328 yards and four touchdown passes.

For Marian (2-5, 2-3), however, there was no quit. Freshman quarterback Colin Hernon threw a 4-yard pass to Kowalczyk for Marian’s final points of the game late in the fourth quarter. Kowalczyk ended with 14 carries for 71 yards and two rushing touchdowns and one receiving. Hernon was 10-of-20 passing for 82 yards and one touchdown.

The loss makes it very challenging for the Hurricanes to make the postseason, but that is not going to change their approach to their final two games.

“We are not going to quit, we are not going to stop. We have a team of great young men. Our focus for the next two weeks is to give the guys everything they deserve, especially our seniors,” Marian coach Liam Kirwan said.