East St. Louis offense flexes its muscles in IHSA Class 6A title win over Geneva

NORMAL – East St. Louis spent several minutes prior to the kickoff of the Class 6A title game with most of its players dancing around with glee.

But once the game actually started, the dancing stopped and the Flyers got down to business.

East St. Louis scored on its first four possessions to set an early tone, but a plucky Geneva squad gave East St. Louis’ vaunted defensive attack all it wanted for much of the contest.

But in the end, the Flyers offensive attack was simply too much in a 48-28 victory that gave East St. Louis its 11th overall state title. East St. Louis scored on six of its first eight possessions and also returned a kick for a score during that stretch and amassed 548 yards of total offense.

For East St. Louis coach Darren Sunkett it was about finishing things the way it started for the Flyers.

“We started our season here on Aug. 29 with a big win [defeating Loyola 34-7) here,” Sunkett said. “We just told the kids that we wanted to finish the season the same way we started with a W. And we accomplished that.”

Early on it looked as if East St. Louis was determined to break away. It quickly forced a three-and-out before marching down the field on its first drive, capping things with a 5-yard touchdown run from Larevious Woods at the 8:52 mark of the first quarter.

Geneva’s opening drive got inside the East St. Louis 30-yard line, thanks in large part to a big kick return from Georgia-bound Talyn Taylor. But that drive flamed out. East St. Louis took over on downs and went on another long drive eventually capped by a 4-yard touchdown pass from Kendrick Lyons to Ronnie GoMiller.

Lyons, a transfer from Granite City who went winless in the last season he was at his former school, was the engineer of an offense that Geneva didn’t have an answer for. Lyons went 14-of-21 on the day with 225 yards passing and two touchdowns.

“We always make it a point to come out fast,” Lyons said. “Every time we get the ball we want to go score. We knew coming in that it was probably going to be a shootout. So we just want to score every time we get the ball.”

Woods made it three-for-three for East St. Louis on first-half possessions as Woods raced in from 21 yards early in the second quarter.

Geneva, after being held to negative yardage on its first three possessions, finally showed signs of life in its fourth possession of the game. A few completions to Finnegan Weppner got the ball deep in East St. Louis territory and the drive was finished effectively with a 7-yard touchdown pass from Tony Chanino to Taylor.

The Flyers made it four touchdowns in four drives when East St. Louis quickly responded with another score as yet another drive ended in a TaRyan Martin rush from four yards out.

Geneva continued to show a willingness to fight and answered with a drive of its own that allowed the Vikings to net a touchdown when Michael Rumoro latched on to a 10-yard touchdown pass from Chahino. But East St. Louis wouldn’t allow Geneva even an inch of momentum gained as Christopher Bennett took the ensuing kickoff back 84 yards to keep East St. Louis firmly in control.

“We had a great game plan going in,” Sunkett said. “We had Geneva scouted up pretty well and we just executed. We’ve been doing that all season.”

Geneva did manage to squeeze in another score just before half which allowed the Vikings the unique distinction of being only the second team all season to score three touchdowns against the Flyers’ defense, but still trailed by two scores at the break.

The Vikings did move to make it a one-score game after Weppner hauled in a 28-yard touchdown pass from Chahino, but just over a minute later GoMiller broke away for an 81-yard touchdown and Geneva would provide no further threat.

“They [East St. Louis] are a fantastic team, they’ve got weapons all over the field,” Geneva coach Boone Thorgesen said. “But I’m proud of our kids and the fight. Because, you know, in the third quarter it was a six-point game and we had a lot of momentum. We’re super proud of our kids.”