Ouch! That hurts
JOLIET -- On a day that dawned with skies the color of JT blue, Justin Stephenson decided to celebrate homecoming the only way he knows how -- with a game of pitch-and-catch.
He threw to teammate Ronald Jordan seven times in the first quarter of Joliet Township's 35-7 loss to Sandburg on Saturday afternoon at Klootwyk Field.
PHOTOs by larry kane/special to the herald news
Included in the string was a 7-yard touchdown pass that capped a 13-play, 85-yard drive on JT's opening possession that consumed 5 minutes and 18 seconds.
The Steelmen (1-5, 0-2) regained the ball after Michael Flores' fourth-down stop of Sandburg's Kevin Thompson on a running play. And they marched down the field again and were threatening to go ahead by two scores when momentum and the game turned upside down on one big hit.
Stephenson, on a third-down play from the Eagles' 5, rolled to his left looking for a receiver to break open in the end zone. He has hit by almost 475 pounds of Sand-burg -- first by the Eagles' 195-pound defensive tackle Matt Mahoney and then by his buddy Mike Schofield, the 6-foot-7, 275-pounder who is headed to Michigan.
Stephenson twisted his left ankle on the play. He was assisted into the back of a golf cart and later exited the stadium on crutches at halftime. Before he departed, he stood tall in the pocket and picked apart Sandburg's secondary as JT looked set to spring an upset in the Southwest Suburban Blue.
He completed 11-of-14 out of the starting blocks and 13-of-21 overall for 154 yards. He was on a pace to eclipse the 300-yard mark. Jordan finished with 10 catches for 119 yards, nine of those coming with Stephenson in the game, seven in the first quarter, good for 68 yards.
Without No. 4 pulling the trigger on JT's spread offense, the Steelmen were deflated.
"I mean, 'What do you say? What do you do?' " JT coach Jason Aubry said. "You've just got to go with your backup guy and do what you can do. Yeah, it took the wind out of our sails, without a doubt. But it can't be an end-all, you know what I'm saying? Justin (Stephenson) is an integral part of our offense, and he knows that and everybody else does too."
Tyler Kelly had a chance to extend JT's first-half lead to 10-0, only his 32-yard field goal was blocked by Schofield.
The Eagles (5-1, 2-0) went 74 yards in nine plays and tied the score on Brent Kondziolka's 3-yard run. And that was just the start of a complete turnaround.
Ryan Johnson's blocked punt set up a 3-yard touchdown run by Bryan Hansen with 2:41 left in the second quarter. Hansen teamed with Tony Stramaglia on a 56-yard scoring strike moments later to put the Eagles on top 21-7 at halftime.
They scored twice more in the third quarter -- on a 1-yard run by Kondziolka and an 18-yard pass from Hansen to Stramaglia. By then, many in the near-capacity crowd were heading for the exits.
Jordan took a helmet-to-helmet hit and still was trying to regain his wits when the final horn sounded. He wasn't knocked silly enough to forget what happened to Stephenson or JT's energy.
"It hurt me a little bit," Jordan said. "Because I was thinking we could go up 14-0 and get a big lead -- and it was homecoming. But things happen. That's why everybody's got to play every down like it's the last play."
Junior quarterback John Woods came off the bench to replace Stephenson. Woods completed 5-of-12 for 45 yards with one interception. JT turned the ball over twice in the second half and Sandburg's big offensive line took charge of the trenches.
The Eagles finished with 219 yards rushing and 390 yards total offense. Hansen completed 7-of-9 for 171 yards and two touchdowns. Stramaglia made six catches for 146 yards. Kondziolka led a balanced ground game with 90 yards rushing on 19 carries.
"I was kind of down, but I told myself it's not over," Jordan said. "I tried to do it for Justin (Stephenson). I played my hardest out there and fell short. That offensive line of theirs started to take over. And, then, they came down with a couple good passes. That killed us, too. Big plays.
"John (Woods) was trying. Justin (Stephenson) mainly gets all the reps in practice. But John -- he tries his hardest. He's out there fighting. He wanted to be out there. Next year he'll be out there all the time."
The full extent of Stephenson's injury will not be known until he gets the results of X-rays. He bruised his knee in a 48-0 loss to Bolingbrook last weekend.
"Our phrase for the year is press on," Aubry said. "In any given situation, no matter what happens to us, we need to press on. We need to continue to go forward. We can't look back and go, 'Oh, poor me.'
"We've got to keep working hard and going forward. That's what we tried to do. It's not about just football. It's about life, too. We're learning life-lessons here."
