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LAKE FOREST – Complementary football.
Geneva has preached it all season long, but may have saved its best effort in abiding by that motto for its biggest game of the season.
The Vikings recovered two onside kicks in the first quarter and forced five turnovers in a dominant 49-14 victory over Lake Forest on Nov. 16 in the Class 6A state quarterfinals.
The victory clinched Geneva’s first appearance in the state semifinals since 2008. Geneva (11-1) will host Cary Grove (12-0), the top seed in Class 6A, at 1 p.m. Saturday.
“Good teams that keep advancing at this time of the year play complementary football,” Geneva coach Boone Thorgesen said. “I think this was our best game of the year playing complementary football. Our defense was lights-out, our offense capitalized on the turnovers the defense created and our special teams was fantastic.”
Geneva wanted to make a statement early and got on the board first when quarterback Anthony Chahino connected with Bennett Konkey for a 41-yard touchdown over the top of the Lake Forest defense.
The ensuing kickoff by Jayden Hodgdon was chipped over the first line of the Lake Forest kick return team and recovered by the Vikings.
Chahino found Gavin Burt for a score six plays later to give Geneva a two-score lead just over five minutes into the game.
“We really couldn’t ask for anything more [to start the game]” said Chahino, who accounted for five Geneva touchdowns in the win. “You can’t say enough about every phase of the game today. It’s complementary football, and when we do that, we’re playing to the best of our ability.”
Geneva recovered another onside kick after Burt’s touchdown, but was forced to punt. The Vikings forced a fumble just three plays into Lake Forest’s first drive and a 1-yard keeper by Chahino extended the lead to 21-0.
The fumble was the first of five Lake Forest turnovers. Geneva’s Dylan Reyes, Troy Velez, Dane Turner and Mason Steurer all recorded interceptions of Scouts quarterback Danny Van Camp.
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Lake Forest (9-3) finished with 183 yards of total offense, including being limited to only 26 yards rushing.
Three of the five Scouts turnovers resulted in touchdowns for Geneva, something Thorgesen knew was equally as important.
“We’ve been close in these past few games [to forcing turnovers], but we just haven’t been getting them,” Thorgesen said. “Those guys are flying around and you can see what happens when we create turnovers. We have a pretty explosive offense, so it was just a really great job by the defense to put them in good positions to score all day.”
“We’re locked in,” Velez said. “A lot of us on that side of the ball have been playing together for a number of years and this is the most locked in we’ve ever been. We know we have quite the test [this] week and we’re going to do our homework and be ready to go.”
The game against unbeaten Cary-Grove on Saturday is a rematch of last year’s Class 6A state quarterfinals that saw Geneva fall 41-7.
Against Lake Forest, Chahino completed 14-of-23 passes for 220 yards and had three passing touchdowns and two rushing scores. Georgia commit Talyn Taylor, Michael Rumoro and Dominic DiLeonardi all found the end zone for the Vikings.