Warriors thought there would be more
AURORA -- As the rain started to pick up, Waubonsie Valley coach Paul Murphy stood in the middle of his team's huddle.
Down on one knee, the long faces and sad reflections complemented the cold, dreary weather that had kicked the night off and then disappeared for a while until the very end of Friday's game.
Photos by Beck Diefenbach / Staff photographer
Hinsdale Central junior Rich Zajeski zigged and zagged his way to a 47-yard kickoff return to start the second half of the game. With Waubonsie leading 7-6, the return placed the Red Devils on the Warriors' 38-yard line. On the first play from the line of scrimmage, sophomore quarterback John Whitelaw broke away for a 38-yard touchdown run that eventually won the game for Hinsdale Central.
Down field the scoreboard read 12-10 and with the rain battering down sideways, Murphy opened his mouth to speak.
"I know it hurts," he said.
The Warriors, making their first playoff appearance since 2005 and hoping to parlay their best regular season in a decade into a second-round appearance in the Class 8A playoffs, had been beaten by Hinsdale Central.
On their own field, on a dreary night and by a miserable two points.
Though the Warriors (7-3) were seeded fifth and the Red Devils (7-3) at No. 12, Murphy had stressed to his team all week that "there are no bad teams in the playoffs."
Certainly, Hinsdale Central was living proof of that. The team knows how to win. With Friday's win, Central moved to 15-10 all time in the playoffs. And in a bit of irony, it had stunned Waubonsie's biggest rival Neuqua Valley, then 8-1 and a No. 2 seed, in an 11-7 upset as a No. 15 seed the previous year.
The Red Devils know how to win and that kind of attitude comes when you're making your seventh straight appearance in the playoffs.
Murphy had stressed to his team all week the need to focus and avoid making key mistakes in what he knew would be an atmosphere unlike anything they'd experienced before.
"I could be a rich man if I could get teenagers to listen to me all the time," Murphy said. "They've got to learn it themselves. We played our hearts out when we were down 12-7, but we should've never been in that position."
The Warriors found themselves in that position right at the start of the second half when they failed to cover the opening kickoff.
Hinsdale Central's Rich Zajeski broke out on a 47-yard return that put the Red Devils on the Warriors' 38-yard line. On the first play of the game, sophomore quarterback John Whitelaw had a breakaway run to give Hinsdale Central the lead. Whitelaw tried for the two-point conversion but was intercepted by Chris Galovic to hold the Red Devils to just a five-point lead.
"That was too easy for them," Murphy said. "We didn't get anything easy tonight. We had to earn it. Our guys have got to learn that they've got to make (the opposition) earn stuff."
Failing to make anything happen on the next drive, the Warriors' defense capitalized on a high snap fumble on the opening play of Hinsdale Central's next possession. Nate Lorance fell on the ball to put the Warriors on Central's 16-yard line.
It looked like the Warriors had remedied their opening mistake when junior quarterback Tyler Castro connected with Mark Hilgers on a 14-yard pass into the end zone on third-and-6. Unfortunately, Hilgers was out of bounds when he caught it. Mitch Ewald booted a 31-yard field goal and the Warriors trailed by 12-10.
Despite another fumble recovery - this time by Ryan DeNichols - that gave the Warriors their possession back following an interception by Castro, the team couldn't make anything happen from its own 30.
By that point, the Red Devils were keying in on Waubonsie's top running threats Kenny Harrington and Richard Tronolone. Harrington was limited to just 59 yards on 16 carries, while Tronolone had 21 yards on nine carries. The senior's 1-yard drive in the second quarter had put the Warriors up 7-6.
After getting sacked, Castro limped off the field with a knee injury with 10:38 left in the game. With so much time left on the clock and the possibility of a comeback still a reality, the loss of their offensive leader was perhaps the final blow to the Warriors' hopes of pulling out a win. A few minutes later, the rain began to fall and it didn't stop.
It was a disappointing end for what had been a banner season for the Warriors. In many ways, it still is. When Murphy took over the program in 2005, Waubonsie was still reeling from its split with Neuqua in the District 204 school system. It seemed the Wildcats had taken most of the school's best football talent with them.
This year's team was the first to be in Murphy's system as freshmen and sophomores and their chemistry on the field showed all year.
Nowhere was that chemistry more apparent than on defense. Along with winning a share of the UEC title for the first time since 1997, the Warriors earned three shutouts this year and took home the honor of being the league's best defensive squad.
Led by linebacker Spencer Merritt, the team had a big night Friday from Lorrance, Dwight Harris, Galovic and DeNichols, to name a few. They held the Red Devils to just 155 yards of total offense.
"If you can look at each other at the end of game and say you played your heart out then you played (a good game)," offensive lineman A.J. Lindemann said. "I played my heart out."
Though he was talking about Friday night, Lindemann, a 6-foot-6-inch, 315-pound Division-I prospect perhaps summed up the play of the team's offensive line over the last few weeks better than anyone.
Led by seniors Lindemann and Brett Einbecker (6-4, 240) or as Murphy referred to them on Thursday, "the two aircraft carriers," both admitted that the Warriors had a banner year after Friday night's game. But the disappointment in their voice was hard to miss. Things didn't end as planned.
But as Murphy told his team in that rainy huddle: It may hurt today, but the sun will rise tomorrow.
Contact Dustin Michael Harris at dharris@scn1.com or 630-416-5273.
