With heavy hearts, Storm falls to Lancers

ROSELLE -- For South Elgin, Friday night wasn't just another football game against Lake Park.

Although it pitted two 5-1 teams battling for an Upstate Eight Conference title, football was put into perspective this week by the death of Matt Wright, a former South Elgin baseball player and the brother of football player Justin Wright.

Lake Park defeated South Elgin 20-15.

"It was a tough week," said coach Dale Schabert. "We saw these kids grow up together in a week. We just had the wake this afternoon. We had to come from the wake to the game. It's tough for me and it's especially tough for young kids like them. I'm proud of them, the way they came together as a team.

"We talked to them about celebrating the fact that they're healthy young men. This is a great group of kids. They never quit. All the years I've been coaching, you have a few special teams and these guys are unreal. I'm lucky to be associated with them."

After two consecutive late-game comebacks, the Storm (5-2, 2-2) showed that never-quit attitude again, this time late in the fourth quarter after falling behind 20-8.

Lake Park (6-1, 5-0) looked in control when Lancers quarterback Larry Narwot connected on a 30-yard pass on fourth-and-12 from the 40-yard line with just more than five minutes remaining.

On the same possession on first-and-goal, Nawrot threw a pass into the hands of South Elgin's Robby Green, who took the interception two yards deep in the end zone, returning it 102 yards for a touchdown – the longest play in South Elgin football history – to make it 20-15.

"We kidded with Robby that that was going into the South Elgin game of Trivial Pursuit," Schabert said. "We got two or three big blocks. That was one hell of a play. It got us right back in it. We've done this all year – make late-game comebacks.

"We just keep fighting back and fighting back. We told the kids after that play to look for a fumble so we could scoop it up and score. Obviously that wasn't in the cards, but these kids don't quit. We worked hard for that victory. They wanted to win for their teammate tonight."

South Elgin quarterback John Menken connected with Jake Kumerow for the only other Storm score of the game, a 25-yard fade pass to the corner of the end zone with 6:26 left in the second. Menken had a solid first half, going 6-for-8 for 91 yards and running the ball for another 19. But South Elgin couldn't manage much in the second half, gaining just 17 total offensive yards and turning the ball over twice.

Lake Park used a steady dose of running back Artie Monaco, who ran for 103 yards on 17 carries. Monaco caught two long touchdown passes (24, 60) from Nawrot in the second half.

LAKE PARK 20 SOUTH ELGIN 15

South Elgin     0    8    0    7   —   15

Lake Park      0    8    6    6   —   20

SE — Kumerow 25 pass from Menken (pass good), 6:26

LP — Cooper 22 run (pass good), 3:58

LP — Monaco 60 pass from Nawrot (kick failed), 3:46

LP — Monaco 24 pass from Nawrot (conversion failed), 10:31

SE — Green 102 interception return (Reisner kick), 4:26

Team statistics              SE          LP

Comp.-att-int.             10-16-3    5-11-2

Passing yards                  108        107

Rushing-att-yds.            21-29     38-214

Total yards                     137         389

Fumbles-lost                   1-0         3-0

Penalties-yards               9-75      8-40

Individual statistics

Rushing:

SE — Birchfield 10-20, Menken 10-11, Hansley 1-(minus 2).

LP — Monaco 17-103, Cooper 12-73, McNamara 5-34, Nawrot 4-4.

Passing:

SE — Menken 10-16-3, 108.

LP — Nawrot 4-11-2, 107.

Receiving:

SE — Chaney 4-77, Kumerow 3-21, Birchfield 1-10.

LP — Monaco 2-84, Mruk 2-23, Cooper 1-0.