[shareprints gallery_id=”675″ gallery_type=”filmstrip” gallery_position=”pos_center” gallery_width=”width_100″ image_size=”xlarge” image_padding=”0″ theme=”dark” image_hover=”popout” lightbox_type=”slide” comments=”true” sharing=”true”]With the understanding that its senior tailback Tony Durns wasn’t going to be at full go in its postseason opener, Waubonsie Valley did what good teams do: find a way.
Buoyed by senior quarterback Zack Bennema’s two touchdown runs and a 100-yard game on the ground from junior linebacker Max Ihry, top-seeded Waubonsie Valley persevered to find a way to earn a 21-14 victory overNo. 8 Metea Valley in a Class 8A first-round game Saturday afternoon in Aurora.
Ihry’s seven-yard TD run with 2:59 left in regulation broke a 14-all tie in proving to be the eventual game-winning score as Waubonsie Valley (9-1) made enough timely plays, both on the ground and through the air.
“Just at the start of the week, (the coaches) said they wanted to run like a power running package, so after that, just started practicing at the running back position. I haven’t run (in the) running back position since Oswego, which was Week 2,” said Ihry, who finished with 110 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries.
Coming into Saturday, Ihry had been used sparingly at running back, racking up 22 yards and a TD on seven carries.
Ihry’s ability to step up when called upon wasn’t lost on his coach.
“He’s the second best running back on our team and we’ve known that all year,” Waubonsie Valley coach Paul Murphy said. “But we need him to play at linebacker, so we didn’t use him until we needed him and we needed him because Tony’s hurt.”
Durns sprained his ankle last week in the Warriors’ 30-point victory over South Elgin and got just two carries in the first half, both resulting in negative yardage.
Despite only gaining seven yards on 10 carries, Bennema’s two short touchdown runs also helped pick up some of the slack lost by Durns not being at full strength.
The Warriors advance to meet defending Class 8A state champion Naperville Central in the second round, setting up a rematch from Week 1 when they forced six Redhawk turnovers en route to posting a 20-6 victory.
“It’s going to be another war, you know? This time of year, you’re playing nothing but good teams,” Murphy said. “They’re the defending state champ and they’re going to remain the defending state champs until somebody knocks them off. We just got to get ready to go to war. Good news is they’re coming here. It’s not on turf and we’ll see what happens.”
Hoping to show its success in the teams’ first meeting, a 38-37 Waubonsie Valley victory last month, wasn’t a fluke, Metea Valley (5-5) wasted no time in taking the opening kickoff right down the field for a score on eight plays.
The 62-yard scoring drive was concluded by an eight-yard TD run from Bryson Oliver, who picked up right where he left off in the teams’ first meeting on Oct. 3 when he had 258 yards and four touchdowns.
Before leaving in the second quarter with an apparent leg injury that required assistance to help him off the field with a noticeable limp, Oliver had gained 78 yards on 14 carries.
Seeing some action in the second half while trying his best to deal with a twisted ankle, Oliver ended his high school career with 103 yards and the TD on 23 carries.
With the game tied at 14-14 and 5:14 left in regulation, Oliver was stopped for a one-yard loss on fourth-and-one as the Mustangs turned the ball over on downs and the Warriors would proceed to go down the field on seven plays to retake the lead on Ihry’s TD.
“Obviously, there was a big fourth down and third-and-shorts and stuff that we didn’t get converted. You never know, but they had an injured running back, too,” Metea Valley coach Ben Kleinhans said. “We really had our shot in the first quarter. We had a lot of momentum, lot of energy and credit to them for kind of holding it together.
“We could’ve have gotten up a couple scores there and we didn’t execute quite as well as we hoped. But there were some big short-yardage, fourth-down stuff that was big momentum—if we get those, who knows what happens there (if) we continue drives. Bryson’s been our heart and soul all year and for him to get banged up like that in this game … that all the work he did was for this game and I feel bad for him because he wanted to be back in there. But he wasn’t 100 percent and that’s tough.”
Bolstered by a Kelvin Givantt II interception of Bennema early in the fourth, Metea Valley was able to tie the game at 14-14 after Kyle Mooney found Nick Dodson for a five-yard TD with 8:13 left to play.
But the Warriors’ ability to hold Oliver back on that pivotal fourth down in a tie game proved to be huge.
“Obviously, that big fourth-down hold with like five minutes left in the game, I think that was definitely the game for them and maybe our whole season so far and the guys really stepped up and did a good job holding Bryson on those third and fourth downs,” Bennema said. “They just did a great job.”
The best offense for Waubonsie Valley (9-1) in the first half consisted mostly of a 72-yard Ihry run up the middle that got the ball to the Mustangs’ three-yard line, a drive finished by Bennema two plays later with a two-yard TD run to tie the game at 7-7 with 3:23 left in the first half.
