Warriors dethrone Don Bosco, 32-26, in OT; advance to UNI-Dome

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

GILBERTVILLE — Rockford came into the season with a 23-game losing streak.

Don Bosco came into the season as the two-time defending state champions.

When the two district rivals faced each other during the regular season, the Dons won in a total beat-down, 80-6, in Rockford.

But Friday’s rematch in the Class 8-Player playoffs quarterfinals proved to be one of those proverbial games where all the statistics and history were thrown out the window.

With a thrilling and seemingly improbable 32-26 overtime victory, the Rockford Warriors have advanced to the state semifinals for the first time in school history.

“We may be the lowest seed down there,” said first-year Rockford head coach Torian Wolf, whose team will face undefeated Southeast Warren at 9 a.m. Thursday at the UNI-Dome, “but we don’t care. We’re underdogs. It’s a role we have accepted.”

Rockford’s lone loss of the season was the aforementioned blowout against the Dons, which begs to question: Throughout the annals of football history, has there ever been another team that won a same-season rematch after losing the previous game by 74 points or more?

When the subject of the previous game was brought up, Wolf seemed thankful to Don Bosco for the experience.

“We won our first two games of the season, and it was nice for us to starting winning again,” Wolf said. “But when we played them in the third game, they showed us what it takes to be a state-championship team. After that game, our guys knew there was some more work to be done if we ever wanted to be a great football team like they are.

“We knew we were going to face them again, and we knew we were going to be better prepared.”

Rockford took a 20-14 lead into halftime before the Dons responded with 12 unanswered points to go up 26-20 in the fourth quarter.

Able to force a Don Bosco punt late in the game, the Warriors got the ball at their own 15 with less than two minutes left in regulation. With time ticking off the clock, Rockford quarterback Jacob Staudt found passage around the left end and scored on a 22-yard keeper.

Unable to cash in on the 2-point conversion, regulation ended in a tie prompting overtime where each team gets the ball spotted at their opponent’s 10-yard line with four downs to score until one score isn’t matched.

With Rockford winning the pre-OT coin toss, it elected to have Don Bosco attempt to score first. On the first snap, Don quarterback Cael Frost was able to run untouched into end zone only to have the play nullified with a holding penalty. That pushed Don Bosco back to the 20, and when Rockford senior Weston Schmidt forced Frost out of bounds just short of the pylon on fourth down, the Warriors got their chance to win it.

After faking an inside handoff to Kaden Lyman, Staudt deftly pitched the ball outside to Dillon Schriever for the 5-yard winning TD.

Staudt rushed for 211 yards on 29 carries and scored two touchdowns. His first score came on the game’s opening possession — a 24-yard burst sprung in part by a running-lane-sealing block by sophomore 300-pound lineman Zach Ott — after Rockford converted several fourth-down plays to keep the drive alive.

Schriever helped put the Warriors up 14-0 early in the second quarter with a 9-yard TD run.

The Dons responded to tie the score a pair of TD’s. First, Carson Tenold scored on a brilliant 41-yard run which was really an 80-yard-run when counting the distance traveled while reversing the field. Then Frost connected with Cael Tenold for a 15-yard scoring pass play to even the score with 1:42 remaining in the half.

In what proved to be a precursor on how to end regulation with an effective 2-minute drill, Rockford was able to regain the lead before halftime when Lyman was able to extend the ball inside the right-corner pylon for a belatedly ruled 1-yard touchdown with 6 seconds remaining. The big play during the drive was a 52-yard pass completion from Staudt to Schriever, who got a step on his defender and made a fine over-the-shoulder catch.

Staudt completed 6 of 13 passes for 107 yards — he has more than 3,000 yards of total offense through 11 games.

In addition to having two rushing touchdowns including the game-winner, Schriever had 81 receiving yards on four catches.

You can’t classify the Warriors’ win as lucky as they actually suffered some tough breaks during the game.

After going up 8-0, Rockford was threatening the score after another sustained drive on its second possession, reaching Don Bosco’s 1-yard-line. Staudt attempted to score on a keeper, but was stood up near the goal line. With no whistle being blown, the ball was eventually stripped away and recovered by Don senior Kendall Becker.

On what would be Don Bosco’s final score of the game, Cade Tenold heaved a fourth-down pass into the back of the end zone where for a second it looked like it was intercepted by a Rockford player only to have Lewis Havel seize a bobbled ball before it hit the ground for a 20-yard TD catch.

Also, there was a sense that Don Bosco was given the opening to take control of the game after they first tied it.

After the Dons’ first score, Rockford decided to go for it on a fourth-and-three snap inside its own 20 yard line.

“We called a timeout before the play, and our offense wanted to go for it,” said Wolf, whose team didn’t convert the fourth down, allowing the Dons to take advantage of the short field with the Frost-to-Cael Tenold score.

“It didn’t go our way, but we didn’t lose confidence in ourselves,” Wolf said.

Eight-on-eight football tends to showcase a whole lotta offense, but it was Rockford’s defense that proved to be the difference — especially whenever the Dons would venture into the red zone.

On repeated occasions with the 16 players within a more-compact area of the field, Rockford’s defense stood tall while spoiling numerous Don Bosco drives.

If there was a play that best exemplifies this, it occured in the first half with Don Bosco threatening to score from Rockford’s 5-yard-line. After taking a fouth-down snap, Don QB Frost bolted forward on a quarterback draw. He had a clear lane to the goal line and you could almost start adding the points to the scoreboard before he seemed destined to cross it.

But in an act of “crazy strength”, Ott was able to grab Frost’s arm from behind and yank him backwards just before he reached the plane.

You couldn’t have blamed Rockford, which already had an outstanding season, to come into the game feeling it had nothing to lose. Yet there was a sense of urgency that — even with the Warriors embracing their underdog role — wasn’t going to settle for a moral victory.

“They may not have had the nervous energy we had,” Wolf said of the Dons. “They’re a great program that has been in this position before. They know how to win games like this.

“We were probably more nervous. But we were able to turn that nervous energy into positive energy.”

Southeast Warren managed to come from behind to beat Ar-We-Va, 46-44. Primarily a pass-oriented team led by senior quarterback Colby Page, the Warhawks have thrown for 2,440 yards with 45 touchdowns and just six interceptions.

Class 8-Player Quarterfinal

ROCKFORD 32, DON BOSCO 26 (OT)

Scoring by Quarters and OT

ROCKFORD 8 12 0 6 6 — 32

DON BOSCO 0 14 6 6 0 — 26

Scoring Summary

R — Jacob Staudt 24-yard run (Dillon Schriever run), 7:20 1st

R — Schriever 9-yard run (Pass failed), 9:22 2nd

DB — Carson Tenold 41-yard run (Cael Frost run), 7:43 2nd

DB — Cael Tenold 15-yard pass from Frost (Pass failed), 1:42 2nd

R — Kaden Lyman 1-yard run (Run failed), :06 2nd

DB — Frost 5-yard run (Run failed), 9:19 3rd

DB — Lewis Havel 20-yard pass from Cade Tenold (Run failed), 7:21 4th

R — Staudt 22-yard run (Pass failed), :22 4th

R — Schriever 5-yard run, OT

Records

Rockford 10-1, Don Bosco 9-2