What we learned in Week 14: A championship weekend to be remembered

Nazareth coach Tim Racki was asked to give some general thoughts following his team’s impressive second-half rally that allowed his the Roadrunners to topple Joliet Catholic in the Class 5A State Championship game.

Racki paused, and then let out a lengthy sigh before breaking down his thoughts.

It was that kind of a weekend for a lot of folks connected to the IHSA finals. Just about everyone needed a minute to distill all the thoughts that came to mind.

Nazareth set all kinds of unique records with a win that saw it trailing Joliet Catholic 20-7 late in the second quarter. The Roadrunners scored 31 unanswered points to culminate a year that literally has no parallels.

• Nazareth is the first team in state history to have started the season with an 0-4 record to win a state championship.

• After a Week 9 loss to St. Francis (a loss Nazareth would avenge in the semifinal round), the Roadrunners entered the postseason as a 4-5 at-large playoff team. Consequently, Nazareth became the first state champion team to finish the season with five losses. And in a weird tangent, it did so in one of just two years (2022 and 2023) in IHSA playoff history where a team with the regular season resume like Nazareth’s would have even made the playoff field.

In a rollercoaster season where clarity was hard to come by, it was actually the Week 9 loss to St. Francis that convinced Racki a championship Saturday was possible.

“They had amped themselves up so much for that St. Francis game and the guys are trying to do too much and the anxiety overtook a lot of guys and there was some finger pointing and they’re freaking out,” Racki said. “After what I heard on that sideline, I brought them in that Saturday morning, because I figured we were going to get in anyway and I was prepared to call them out because I couldn’t sleep that night.

“And I didn’t have to say too much because they came to me and were accountable teammates and they were accountable and knew what they had done wrong. And that Saturday afternoon, I walked out, and I was like, “We’re going to be OK.”

Don’t call it an upset

A large chunk of people breaking down the Class 6A title game between Cary-Grove and East St. Louis didn’t think Cary-Grove would be able to duplicate the 37-36 barnburner of a victory over East St. Louis in the 2021 finals.

But history repeated itself almost in duplicate fashion as the Trojans executed a near-perfect game plan and earned a 23-20 victory.

Cary-Grove engineered one of the most impressive drives in state championship history with the outcome of the game on the line.

After Laverious Woods gave East St. Louis a 20-15 lead on the with a 1-yard touchdown run with just a few seconds left in the third quarter, Cary-Grove received the ensuing kickoff and brought it back to the 29-yard line.

Thus began... The Drive.

Utilizing 19 plays, only one of which gained more than nine yards, the Trojans twice converting fourth downs inside their own territory. Deftly balancing the need to score a touchdown in order to win the game and squeezing as much clock as possible, Logan Abrams crashed in from the 2-yard line with just 1:19 remaining for East St. Louis to try to mount a last-ditch effort to reclaim the lead.

In all, Cary-Grove traversed 71 yards in a whopping 10 minutes, 41 seconds of clock time.

“Well, we were really trying to make it 11 minutes and 45 seconds,” Cary-Grove coach Brad Seaburg quipped. “But we felt pretty good about what we were getting on each play. And we were very conscious of where the clock was. And we knew if we didn’t score there, it was over. So we were all in there and we were able to punch it in.”

Cary-Grove wasn’t the only team that bucked the traditional wisdom of how things might go.

In Friday’s 1A contest between Lena-Winslow and Camp Point Central, heavily favored Lena-Winslow eyed its fourth consecutive state title over a team it beat 30-8 in last year’s Class 1A title game.

But it didn’t take long to discover things were going to be different this time around. Camp Point Central not only earned the school’s first state-title with a 14-0 win, it became the first team to shut out the vaunted Lena-Winslow offense since 2007.

Points galore

Byron entered the Class 3A final needing 52 points to eclipse the state record for points scored set by Peoria’s 2016 squad.

The Tigers very early on made it clear that they intended not only to get that record, but blow right past it.

Byron rolled to a 69-7 victory over Mt. Carmel, which secured multiple records for the Tigers.

• The Tigers finished the season with 823 points, surpassing the previous record of 805.

• Byron averaged 58.8 points per game, surpassing the previous record of 57.5, also set by Peoria.

• Byron set the state record for total touchdowns with 123, breaking the record set by Peoria.

• Byron also set the record for total rushing touchdowns with 109, easily eclipsing the mark set just last year by Lena-Winslow with 94.

Building legacies

Mount Carmel’s win over Downers Grove North gave the Caravan their 15th overall title, which ties Joliet Catholic for the most in IHSA history.

Loyola is climbing that list as well after its win over Lincoln-Way East. It’s Loyola’s fifth title, but third since 2015. Wilmington added its third title with a win over Athens and second in the last three years. It was a bit of a history repeats itself sort of weekend as Camp Point Central was the lone first-time champion out of the eight teams crowned.

From an individual coaching perspective, Rochester’s Derek Leonard earned his ninth title with his team’s win over St. Laurence as did Nazareth’s Racki. They are both still chasing current St. Laurence assistant Frank Lenti, who still owns the state record of 12 championships, all of which he accomplished at Mount Carmel.