Green Wave dealt first defeat

ELGIN – No one could have blamed St. Edward for feeling robbed of a victory Friday night after twice being denied apparent go-ahead touchdowns on controversial calls in the game's final minutes.

However, Green Wave coach Mike Rolando wasn't blaming anyone except himself and his team's own shortcomings in a 19-16 loss to Chicago Christian in Suburban Christian Conference Gold Division play at Greg True Field.

"We should have never let it come down to a call at the end of the game," said Rolando. "We didn't come ready to play. There was no sense of urgency on our part. There is plenty of blame to go around right here with both coaches and players."

With Chicago Christian (2-2, 1-1) leading 19-16, it appeared that St. Edward (3-1, 1-1) had taken the lead with 5:21 left in the game when Ben Lehman's 33-yard pass in the end zone to Sam Pozezinski was ruled a touchdown by the back judge.

However, the ball came loose when Pozezinski hit the ground. After an officials' conference, the play was ruled an incomplete pass. Moments later, St. Edward moved the ball to the Chicago Christian 1-yard line.

On a third-down play from the 1, Jordan Torres dove across the goal line for what appeared to be a go-ahead TD with 3:12 left in the game. The officials did not see it that way and marked the ball inches away from the goal line. Torres was then stuffed on a fourth-down run up the middle to end the Wave's hopes of going 4-0 for the first time in 25 years.

"I thought it was a touchdown," said Torres. "But what can you do? You have to go with the call that was made."

But Torres agreed with his coach that the game should have never come down to that play.

"I think we overlooked this team," said Torres, whose team knocked off defending Class 2A state champion Immaculate Conception last week. "We didn't come ready to play, we had a bad week of practice and you saw what happened because of it. We just made way too many mistakes."

St. Edward got off to a horrendous start. Two first-quarter fumbles deep in its own territory led to a pair of TDs for Chicago Christian and St. Edward trailed 13-0.

St. Edward regrouped to score a TD on a 12-yard run by Torres with :46 left in the first quarter. The Wave then took a 14-13 lead with 2:32 left in the second quarter on a 46-yard TD strike from Lehman to Pozezinski.

On the play, Pozezinski grabbed the ball at the 30-yard line, and with a nice spin move around his defender, raced down the sideline for the score. However, St. Edward's offense sputtered in the second half. Early in the fourth quarter, Lehman threw an interception just across midfield, which was returned inside the Wave's 10-yard line. That set up the go-ahead TD for the Knights, making it 19-14 with 9:01 to play.

Later in the quarter, St. Edward pinned the Knights at their own 1-yard line and got a safety when Jon Keokanlaya tackled a Knights player in the end zone.

Torres finished with 65 yards on 15 carries for St. Edward, which gained 299 yards of offense, 186 yards below its average.

Chicago Christian 19, St. Edward 16

Chicago Christian 13   0   0   6   --  19

St. Edward           7    7   0   2   --  16

Team statistics               CC               STE

First downs                       10                  11

Comp.-att.-int.               7-16-0           6-19-1

Passing yards                   141                122

Rushing yards                 41-98           37-177

Total yards                       239               299

Fumbles-lost                     1-0               4-2

Penalties-yards                 7-46             6-44

Individual statistics

Rushing

CC – Vander Laan 20-81, Ryan 4-13.

STE – Torres 15-65, Hoebbel 11 -30, Godfrey 2-42, Keokanlaya 7-47, Lehman 2-(minus 7).

Passing

CC – Vander Laan 5-14-0-98, Warren 2-2-0-43.

STE – Lehman 6-19-1-122.

Receiving

CC – Kowalczyk 4-56.

STE – Pozezinski 2-70, Von Ahnen 3-43, Godfrey 1-9.