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SYCAMORE — Eli Meier was taking some big hits but that didn’t stop him from making some big plays.
Sacked three times by Reginald Anderson, Meier still threw for two touchdowns and ran for a third in No. 1 Sycamore’s 54-13 win against No. 16 Westinghouse on Saturday.
Meier was sacked on the second play of the game by Anderson, then two plays later he was leveled right after he got a pass off. But Burke Gautcher made the grab for a 59-yard touchdown.
“It’s just about forgetting the last play and moving on,” Meier said. “That’s just our mindset. One play at a time. It doesn’t matter the down or distance. We got a play for it. ... That was just an option route so whatever the defense was lining up in, I give him a route, he runs it and he scores a touchdown.”
Meier was 8 of 12 for 163 yards in one half of play, with touchdown passes to Gautcher and Kaden Ladas on an 11-yard fade late in the second quarter.
Sycamore coach Joe Ryan said he liked the resilience of his quarterback.
“He’s always that way. His eyes are always downfield,” Ryan said. “One of the sacks, that was on him, he spun out of it and he shouldn’t have done that. But I thought he played really well tonight. He threw some really nice balls and got us on the scoreboard early.”
Sycamore scored on all seven of its first-half possessions. Just as he did on the first touchdown, Meier turned an and-long situation into points. After he was sacked by Anderson in the final minute for a 14-yard loss, he took off on a fourth-and-24 run and ended up with a 35-yard touchdown run and a 47-7 lead to ensure a running clock throughout the second half.
“We gave up 13 points so that’s obviously not ideal, not up to our standards,” Meier said. “But the offense was rolling. We had some fumbles and that’s unacceptable. We just have to keep cleaning things up.”
The Warriors (5-5) had a 94-yard pass from quarterback Askiea Bullie to Matthew Sims on what started as a screen. Sims broke out of a couple tackles early and then juked the final defenders, racing and outrunning the defense. That cut the score to 13-7 with 5:33 left in the first quarter, but Sycamore scored the next 41 points.
Ryan said after the Spartans’ 28-0 win against Morris last week to clinch the Kishwaukee River/Interstate 8 White title, the team started a little flatter than it did last week.
“The first touchdown, I thought it was a little lack of effort and we hadn’t had that this year,” Ryan said “They amped it back up and were better. We played a tremendous game last week for a conference championship, and it’s hard to come back. But that’s how you come back. You have big games in the playoffs, you have to be able to rebound.
Both teams put up huge first-half offensive numbers, with Westinghouse netting 211 total yards, but Bullie was intercepted three times – once each by Kiefer Tarnoki, Dawson Alexander and Carter York.
Tarnoki’s interception came early in the second quarter when Westinghouse drove into Sycamore territory, down 27-7. He returned it out to the 14 and nearly scored but was chased down from behind by De’Amonte Arroyo.
Three plays after Tarnoki’s pick, Tyler Curtis had his second touchdown of the half. Each team added a touchdown in the second half, with Bullie throwing his second of the game, this one 24 yards to Arshawn Powell. Diego Garcia had an 8-yard run for the Spartans.
Westinghouse finished with 346 total yards, with Bullie throwing for 272 yards. Sycamore finished with 468 yards of total offense, with 238 on the ground in the first half to 163 through the air. The Spartans ran almost exclusively in the second half.
“I think we found out there were some things we didn’t do particularly well,” Ryan said. “But they have a lot of team speed and spread it out and made you play 53 1/3 yards wide all the time. It was a different challenge for our defense. We hadn’t faced quite that type of speed so far.”