With less than 30 seconds on the clock, Micah Hamilton stripped the ball from Sandburg’s quarterback. Carson Johnson scooped it and took it to the end zone as the final buzzer went off, ultimately diminishing all of the Eagles’ meager hopes of a comeback.
After a huge victory in round one, Minooka football goes back to the Southwest Suburban – Blue Conference, but this time to face the champions. The champs are the No. 2 seeded undefeated Lincoln-Way East Griffins. A team that is on a mission.
That mission is to get revenge on the defending IHSA 8A State Champs Loyola Academy after they defeated them in the championship last year, and the Indians look to be the roadblock that dismantles their ambitions.
Three-time state champ head coach Rob Zvonar has many key returners from his 2022 2nd-place team. On the offensive side they include two-time starting quarterback senior Braden Tischer, three-year starting center and Iowa commit senior Josh Janowski, and senior running back Nuri Muhammad. For the defensive side some are three-year starting seniors – middle linebacker Conner Durkin and defensive end David Wuske.
Like last year, the Griffins offense is led by a strong running back committee. After their top two tailbacks graduated, they looked for the next two to step up. They did so with barely any set back.
Coming off the bench last year Muhammad now leads this year’s pack and racked up 757 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in the regular season. Junior running back Zion Gist is his counterpart and had 538 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns in the regular season.
Dual-threat quarterback Tischer has also got his fair share of production on the ground and in the regular season ran for 538 yards and nine touchdowns. With this strong rushing game, they looked to the run 65% of the time in the regular season.
Tischer has also led a viable passing offense. He threw for 1,214 passing yards with a 58 completion percentage and 11:2 touchdown:interception ratio.
His top two wide receivers are seniors D.J. Richardson and Ryan Usher who both had about 300 receiving yards and two touchdowns in the regular season. Lining up closer to the line is his tight end junior Trey Zvonar, who has collected multiple D1 offers, and had 156 receiving yards and a touchdown in the regular season.
In the backfield getting most of the receiving action is Gist who racked up 89 receiving yards and three touchdowns in the regular season. Overall the Griffins are averaging 36.7 points per game this season.
On the defensive side of the ball, they are just as dominant. Zvonar’s defense is only allowing 6.2 points per game this season. The line is headlined by a three-headed monster made up of senior Wuske, junior Caden O’Rourke, and sophomore Jacob Alexander. Wuske is the veteran of the pack and has received D1 offers, while O’Rourke and Alexander both look to be Power Five bound.
Standouts on the back end are seniors Durkin, cornerback Jashawn Echols, and safety JT Poynton.
Durkin who had 60 total tackles through six games this season was an honorable mention in last year’s Chicago Tribune’s Southtown Football All-Area team.
Echols got 2 interceptions and 3 tackles for loss in six games this season. He also has come up big in the clutch for the Griffins. He did so in both of their closest games this season, which were against Batavia and Bradley-Bourbonnais.
Poynton racked up 53 total tackles in five games this season, and is another D1 bound player on the defense.
East’s stifling defense has only allowed two scores three times this season.
Moreover, the Griffins had two similar opponents as the Indians, this season. The Neuqua Valley Wildcats and Sandburg Eagles.
Minooka had a tough battle with the Wildcats, and came up short 10-6, while East dominated them a week later 35-7. So both defenses looked about equal, but the Griffin’s offense came out on top in the matchup of similar opponents.
Though fast forward to the end of the season, the Indians came up with an almost equal point differential against Sandburg as the Griffins. Minooka won by 21, with a 27-7 victory in the first round of the playoffs. While Lincoln-Way East won by 28, with a 42-14 win in the second to last game of the regular season. So the Indians showed signs of improvement in that field.
All-in-all the odds are stacked against Minooka, a team that is coming off arguably their best game of the season where their defense shut down a proven offense.
And two-way seniors Troy Hudak and Donovan Anderson both picked off a quarterback that saw very little of that leading up to the game, as well as the defensive line creating pressure throughout the game.
On the offense, senior quarterback Nate Maul drove them down for three successful touchdown drives. Throughout the game, they found success on the ground and the air, how they have been all season.
However, this Griffins team is unlike any they’ve faced all season. Their best hope is to slow down their running game, like last year’s 7A IHSA runner-up Batavia did in week two. This will allow them to be the only team this season to have a one-score game with Lincoln-Way East. Instead of allowing their running back committee to get close to their average of 161.9 yards per game, they only allowed them about a third of that. Now it’s time for arguably Minooka’s biggest, their run defense, to do the same.
Minooka’s offense needs to score over 14, because even if the Indian’s defense slows down the Griffin’s offense, they still don’t project to put up less than 14. This is what they did in their lowest scoring game, in the game against Batavia.
Will Minooka pull off one of the biggest upsets in IHSA history? Find out at 6:30 p.m. in Lincoln-Way East (Frankfort) tonight, Nov. 3.
*Lincoln-Way’s regular season player stats exclude their week one game against Kenwood
