Geneva delivers in pressures situations, eases past St. Charles North

ST. CHARLES – With playoff positioning at stake, Geneva came up with big plays in high-pressure situations, grabbing a 20-10 victory over St. Charles North to close the regular season.

The St. Charles North offense was rolling early, driving with relative ease into the Geneva red zone. However, on a play where North Stars quarterback Ethan Plum was under pressure, he delivered a rocket just wide of his receiver that was picked off by a diving Dylan Reyes.

[ Photo store: Geneva vs. St. Charles North ]

Vikings coach Boone Thorgesen said his defense thrives in high-pressure moments.

“It’s huge to stop that momentum,” Thorgesen said. “We stressed all week long that they are a really good football team who is playing well right now. We knew our defense had to come up and make plays. We tell the kids all the time that against a good football team, you never know which play will be the one that makes or breaks the game.”

After about 46 minutes of play, Geneva (7-2) found itself up 13-10 with fourth down and goal from the North Stars’ 4-yard line. The Vikings already had kicked two field goals and could have settled for a 20-yard chip shot to go up six points.

Instead, senior quarterback Nate Stempowski and the offense took the field. Stempowski then evaded the pressure, rolling to his right and connecting on a short touchdown pass to Troy Velez to put the game away.

Stempowski said he never doubted the play would work.

“I play shortstop in baseball, so those side arm throws come easy,” Stempowski said. “I just told my guy [Velez] you’re gonna be open this play. I let it develop and I hit him. We had that play in the back of the book and when we took it out, it worked great for us.”

For the North Stars (6-3), it was a night of near misses and bad breaks. After capping a 70-yard touchdown drive with a two-yard touchdown plunge by Joel Holloman to tie the game at 10-10, St. Charles North pulled out a surprise pooch kick on the ensuing kickoff. Although a North Stars gunner looked to have covered the ball, it squirted out on the wet turf and found its way into the belly of a Geneva player.

North Stars coach Robert Pomazak said his team just didn’t make plays in crucial moments when it needed to.

“Well, we had it and then we didn’t have it,” Pomazak said. “It’s just execution. It’s listening, it’s understanding and executing from both a teaching aspect and a learning aspect, executing in those pressure moments. When they ran the fake punt, I should have called a timeout. We saw a formation that we were uncomfortable with. I thought we had it covered, but we didn’t, so hats off to them.”

Despite issues with red zone scoring, turnovers and lack of execution, Pomazak thinks his team will be able to compartmentalize and move forward in the playoffs.

“Every week is so separate from the others,” Pomazak said. “We have a whole new team that we’re going to be playing so we’re going to learn from it, but we aren’t going to dwell on it. Then we’ll try to go win five games in a row.”