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Foxes score 35 unanswered points for 45-28 win, clinch playoff berth
YORKVILLE – On a night where Yorkville asked alumni to come back for Homecoming, the Foxes had an impressive comeback, rallying from an 18-point deficit to earn a 45-28 victory over Kaneland to cinch its first playoff berth since 2014.
Yorkville scored 35 unanswered points to win the Northern Illinois Big 12 East Conference game which had its start time moved up by two hours to avoid the forecasted thunderstorms.
“We’ve had three games now where we had to fight back,” Foxes coach Dan McGuire said, citing prior games against Sycamore and Morris. “These kids are winners. It had nothing to do with us coaches. They’re great kids.”
Kaneland (5-2, 2-1) turned the ball over twice in the first minute of the game. It turned into Toran Harris' 10-yard touchdown run, and a 24-yard Cade Henry for a 10-0 Yorkville lead.
The Knights, though, scored on four consecutive possessions after that.
“We turned the ball over tonight and that can’t happen,” Knights coach Pat Ryan said. “Those turnovers turned into points and just killed us.”'
Jonathan Alstott, who gained 78 yards 18 carries, ran in two touchdowns and two more Kaneland scores came on Joe Smith touchdowns of 30 yards to Alstott (five catches, 51 yards) and 40 yards to Colton Doll for a 28-10 lead.
The Knights seemed to be unstoppable, but the Foxes picked up a 2-yard keeper from quarterback Josh Beetham with 5:01 left in the first half,and even more significantly, came up with a defensive stop before heading into halftime down 28-17.
“The fact that we got that stop allowed us to carry some momentum into the second half and believe we can stop them,” McGuire said. “I think that really helped our confidence.”
After collecting 316 yards of total offense in the first half, the Knights only had 37 in the second half.
“Our original plan to start the game wasn’t working so coach made a decision to go to something we were doing before and we shut them out after that,” Foxes linebacker Jacob Piasecki said.
“We knew we could do this. Even with our backs against the wall we came out and gave 100 percent.”
That allowed the Yorkville offense to complete the comeback.
Beetham (18-of-34, 279 yards) threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Nico Medrano (six catches, 119 yards), and Harris (20 carries, 71 yards) scored on a 5-yard run for the Foxes (6-1, 2-1).
The Harris run came during the first minute of the fourth quarter after the Foxes had converted a 4th-down-and-10 on a 17-yard pass from Beetham to Nick Stemmet (four catches, 53 yards).
“I came out a little slow which was obviously not what I wanted,” Beetham said. “Then I got into a zone in the second half where I felt I could make any throw.”
Any hopes the Knights had to rally again disintegrated when Jake Polowy intercepted Smith’s pass on the first play of Kaneland’s next drive and took it in for a 38-yard score.
It came after Smith (12-of-23, 178 yards) had completed nine straight passes.
“Everybody just did their job and the ball ended up falling into my hands,” Polowy said. “Coach made a different play call that we usually don’t run on that formation and we executed.”
Beetham found Brock Grimaldi (four catches, 65 yards) for a touchdown with 7:50 left to complete the scoring.
“We came out and looked flat in the second half and they just whooped us,” Ryan said. “Give their quarterback credit. The kid is a really good player and we needed to get some stops but didn’t. But that’s a good football team there so you got to give those guys credit.”