8A Football: Oswego defense buckles down to clinch win over Belleville East

The Oswego defense has been solid all year, and the Panthers weren’t about to let one mistake spoil their season on Friday in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs.

Oswego overcame a late penalty and held visiting Belleville East on a final red zone drive to win 28-20 at Ken Pickerill Stadium and advance to the second round. The Panthers now travel to No. 2 Huntley (9-0) on Saturday for a 2 p.m. kickoff.

"We've been in this situation before and it was good that our defense could anchor it down," Oswego senior linebacker/running back Chad Marsh said. "Things happen and you don't purposely try and bring someone down by their face mask on the last drive of the game, but things happen. We had a stupid one, but everything can be fixed. We're going to work on our form and work on being a little bit smarter when it matters."

Belleville East quarterback Andrew Millas completed a fourth-down pass to Damone Witherspoon that was short of the first down marker, but a face mask penalty gave the Lancers new life with a first down at their own 36-yard line.

Millas looked to his standout receiver, and Isaiah King made the 63-yard touchdown catch with 3:56 to play. The Oswego special teams unit blocked the extra point kick to keep the Panthers in the lead, 21-20.

Oswego answered the Belleville East score with a seven-play, 80-yard drive highlighted by a 36-yard run by Erik Vargas Jr., and Chad March finished the series with an easy 20-yard run to put the Panthers ahead 28-20 with under two minutes to play.

"They went to their full house backfield and started grinding the ball on us. We had a hard time stopping it and it was just eating the clock and eating the field at the same time," Lancers head coach Kris Stephens said. "We had to make a couple decisions ... we made the call to let them score there so we could get the ball back to our offense with as much time as we could. We were trying to make something happen."

The Millas to King connection continued to work for the Lancers – and this time the catch resulted in a huge first down at the Oswego 10. Trailing by eight and running out of time, Millas tried four times to find an open receive in the end zone, and the Lancers came up short, turning over the ball with less than 20 seconds left. The Panthers took a knee to seal the victory.

"That's a good team. They have no quit in them; that's a testament to those kids and their coaching staff," Oswego head coach Brian Cooney said. "We just couldn't get ourselves out of a couple holes, but when all is said and done, it's the playoffs – win and move on."

Oswego scored on its opening drive following a 22-yard catch by senior Joe Hennessy, and quarterback Steven Frank scored from the 11-yard line to put the Panthers on the scoreboard. Belleville East tied the game with 10:21 to play in the second quarter when Millas found King for the 9-yard score to tie the game.

Oswego responded with an 18-yard touchdown from Frank to sophomore Ray Chmielinski to put Oswego ahead 14-7.

Belleville East scored right out of intermission, putting together a six-play drive with a big 80-yard catch and run by Devin Walkins to reach the Oswego 4, and two plays later Witherspoon scored from the 2 to tie the game at 14 with 9:31 to play in the third quarter.

Oswego went back to grinding out the yardage in the second half. Set up by a 30-yard run by Marsh, Frank scored from the 3-yard line to give the Panthers a 21-14 lead after another successful Brice Robinson PAT kick, and Oswego never relinquished the lead from there.

“The kids came through. Made it a little too exciting for us, but the kids came through,” Cooney said.