Football: November 2008 Archives

Bolingbrook Raiders senior Alex McNulty had to watch the end of his prep football career from the sideline as the top-ranked Raiders were knocked out of the Class 8A playoffs on Nov. 7 due to a shoulder injury that was feared to be a fracture.

On Tuesday night, McNulty told The Brook Blog that his injury is a probable pectoral tendon tear, and that his X-rays were negative for fractures. McNulty said he would be getting an MRI on Thursday to learn more about the injury.

"It feels a whole lot better than it did," McNulty said.

On the recruiting front, the safety said he would probably not be attending Colorado State, which was the first school to offer him a scholarship, and that Akron is now the front runner. McNulty, who said that Notre Dame has contacted him, but not offered a scholarship, said he would be visiting Akron soon.

It doesn't hurt Akron's chances that former Raiders Dale Martin and Ryan Bain are on the roster for the Zips.

If you need to get out of the house for a few hours on Thanksgiving while the bird cooks, the Bolingbrook Buccaneers have the event for you: Turkey Bowl I.

The Buccaneers will hold an offense vs. defense scrimmage on Thanksgiving day. It is billed as "last chance to dominate the Year who's better." Could be that there are two sentences hiding there without the guardianship of punctuation, but we're not sure.

The Turkey Bowl will be held at 10 a.m. at Pershing Elementary School in Joliet.

As the cold drizzle fell on the Bolingbrook Raiders outside their lockeroom on the way to the bus on Friday night, a group of Hinsdale Central students walked by talking about what they were going to do on Saturday.

"Do you know how far away Belleville is?" was the response of one when the other proposed going to scout the matchup of Brother Rice and Belleville East, which will play for the right to face Hinsdale Central in the quarterfinals now that the Red Devils have knocked top-seeded Bolingbrook out of the IHSA Class 8A playoffs.

While it is 285 miles each way between Hinsdale and Belleville, the Bolingbrook team that showed up on Friday night in Hinsdale seemed leagues apart from the one that brought an undefeated record and state title aspirations into the second-round game.

HINSDALE -- Here we are in round two of the IHSA Class 8A playoffs where the undefeated and top-seeded Bolingbrook Raiders will try to advance to the quarterfinals with a win over the Hinsdale Central Red Devils.

If you read today's Bolingbrook Sun, and I hope that you did, you may think that the game is at Bolingbrook and that Hinsdale Central's mascot is Trojans. Not so much. I can't offer a mea culpa exactly, but I will give you a wea culpa, because there's no I in team and so forth.

Hinsdale Central athletic director Paul Moretta has told The Brook Blog on Wednesday via e-mail that he looked into moving Friday night's IHSA Class 8A second-round game with the Bolingbrook Raiders to Toyota Park.

As of this post, we are still waiting for his response to our question:
Was this inquiry into the Bridgeview home of the MLS Chicago Fire due to concerns for the playing surface at Hinsdale Central?

On Monday, The Brook Blog reported that Bolingbrook coach John Ivlow said Hinsdale's field was in bad shape, and that was the reason for contacting Toyota Park. Bolingbrook athletic director Alec Anderson would not comment on why Hinsdale Central would want to move its home game, but confirmed Toyota Park was discussed.

In his initial e-mail response on Wednesday, Moretta said he was interested in Toyota Park because of its seating capacity, ample parking and the opportunity to play in a professional stadium.

Moretta was out of the office on Thursday.

Bolingbrook assistant football coach Todd Howard is the fourth member of the Raiders coaching staff to write for The Brook Blog. Here is what is on his mind as Bolingbrook gets ready for the second round of the IHSA Class 8A playoffs.

As we finish up this week of preparation and begin to wind down before the big game Friday night, I find myself in a familiar place. This is my third year of being a part of the coaching staff at Bolingbrook High School, and all three years we have qualified for the playoffs.

The first two years we lost to the eventual state champs (Lincoln-Way East and Naperville North). It's a feeling that you never quite get over. Remembering the looks on the seniors' faces, some flooded with tears, and others whose eyes are glazed over in disbelief. Hoping that the underclassmen remember this scene so that they'll work that much harder to not suffer the same fate the next year.

Looming in the back of your head are thoughts of what could've been or what we, as coaches, could've done differently to have prevented Bolingbrook from another premature playoff exit and another championship-less season. Highly anticipating the next season, so that you can try to make your weaknesses your strengths, and turn your strengths to habits.

However, this season is different, which ironically makes it all too familiar.

The Raiders will not be on Carlyle Lake come May. Bolingbrook is not one of the 214 schools that will compete for the first IHSA Bass Fishing State Series.

Now I know good and well that The Brook can fish. Let's get a boat next year.

In that list of 214 is Hinsdale Central -- Bolingbrook's second-round opponent in the Class 8A football playoffs.

The Raiders may have to face bass fishing schools in each of the next four rounds as potential quarterfinal opponent Brother Rice, potential semifinal pairings Naperville North and Lincoln-Way East and potential state finalists Bartlett, Loyola Academy and Warren have all signed up to wet some hooks.

The Bolingbrook Raiders football team was treated to a taco dinner on Monday night after practice thanks to the Shamrock Company, which is the largest frachisee of Taco Bell and KFC stores in the Chicago area.

Last week the Raiders had KFC for free. Mir Ali, who is the area manager for Shamrock, said the food will be provided every week the Raiders are still in the Class 8A playoffs.

"It's our team," Ali said. "We support them. Most of these kids are our customers."

In a twist of fate, Shamrock has its corporate headquarters in Hinsdale, home to Bolingbrook's second-round opponent Hinsdale Central.

The Bolingbrook Raiders football team will play at Hinsdale Central on Friday at 7 p.m. in the second round of the Class 8A playoffs, but the game was nearly scheduled for Toyota Park in Bridgeview, according to Bolingbrook coach John Ivlow.

According to Ivlow, the field at Hinsdale Central is in bad shape and that's the reason why the teams were looking elsewhere.

If top-ranked Bolingbrook (10-0) advances to the quarterfinals with a win on Friday, the Raiders can scout their opponent on Saturday when Brother Rice plays Bellville East on Saturday night. The game will be played at Bellville West at 7 p.m.

Bolingbrook student Nick Ficarrotta is keeping an eye on the IHSA football playoffs for us. This is his second post for The Brook Blog.

How to start the playoffs? Thatʼs the question that could have been on everyoneʼs mind heading into this weekend. Little did we all know that it would end up being this wild. With Bolingbrook eliminating Chicago Curie on Friday night 62-13, the Raiders hit the ground running for that first state title.

The game could have ended halftime when the Raiders lit up the scoreboard with a 34-7 lead. The Raider Defense only allowed 90 total yards from Curie in the first half which only had 122 total yards by the end of the game. The Offense of Bolingbrook had 309 rushing yards for the entire game. Talk about a mismatch.

Next up is Hinsdale Central which was one of the shockers this weekend. Central made its game look far too easy against a Downers Grove South team that came back from starting the year 0-2. Bolingbrook fans as well as players where shocked to hear the announcement that Hinsdale Central was leading DGS 46-0 with three minutes left in the fourth quarter. That final score was 46-12.

So what else happened in other parts of the bracket? Well why donʼt we talk about the all the upsets. And that doesnʼt just mean 8A either.

Now that the girls and boys cross country teams have been eliminated from the playoffs, that leaves the football team as the lone Bolingbrook Raiders team alive from the fall sports season.

Soon enough, we will speak about hoops, rasltlin and picking up the spare. But for now, it's all bout foosball.

The top-seeded Raiders will play at Hinsdale Central next week in the second round of the IHSA Class 8A playoffs. Maybe it will be on Friday. Maybe on Saturday. We don't know, we have to wait, just like the winter sports.

Boys bowling starts first on Nov. 11 at Plainfield North. Then comes the big shooter of the group -- girls basketball -- with its debut on Nov. 22 at Parkland College. The boys basketball teams tips it off on Nov. 25 in Decatur on the same night that the wrestling team gets going at Bradley. The last squad to get in motion is girls bowling, which will begin its roll on Dec. 4 versus Lincoln-Way North.

Because senior Alfonzo Sylvester attended Curie as a freshman, Bolingbrook Raiders football coach John Ivlow left it up to Sylvester to decide which jerseys the Raiders would wear on Friday night.

Sylvester picked red jerseys to go with black pants and black socks, and the Raiders swamped Curie 62-13 in the first round of the IHSA Class 8A playoffs.

"Red's my favorite color so I just like playing in red," Sylvester said. "I picked all black from the pants to the socks becuase we've never done that before. We've never worn that in any game, any home game, any away game."

His childhood friends Sam Altman, Rashad Faulk and Anthony McKinley were key to Curie's success this season as evidenced on Friday night when Altman returned a kickoff for an 89-yard touchdown in the second half. They also had plenty to say to Sylvester leading up to the game.

"It was a tough loss (for them), but they was talking stuff the whole week," Sylvester said. "I told them it was going to happen, but it's a tough loss for them."

Up Next

The top-seeded Raiders (10-0) will travel to Hinsdale Central (8-2) next week for the second round. The IHSA will announce the time and date of that game on Monday afternoon.

Hinsdale Central absolutely ripped Downers Grove South on Friday night, winning 46-12 in a game where Downers South scored twice in the final two minutes.

Bolingbrook will need to key an eye on Red Devils quarterback John Whitelaw, who accounted for four touchdowns. Whitelaw rushed for 98 yards and two touchdowns and was 11 of 13 passing for 197 yards and another two TDs.

During the regular season, the Red Devils lost their first game of the season 28-27 in overtime to Wheaton Warrenville South and the season finale 9-0 to Glenbard West. Both were No. 1 seeds in Class 7A.

In between their losses to teams with a combined regular-season record of 17-1, the Red Devils posted a seven-game winning streak, including wins over playoff teams Downers Grove North and York.