The quarterfinal round of the IHSA playoffs typically provides for a number of memorable games.

The 2025 version of the playoffs certainly didn’t disappoint in that regards.

Consider some of the wild finishes:

Nazareth trailed Lake Zurich 21-9 with just over three minutes to play when a penalty forced the Bears to kick the ball back to the Roadrunners.

Nazareth quickly scored to slice into the deficit, a solid accomplishment in its own right against a Lake Zurich defense that has been staunch.

And Nazareth kept pushing despite the long odds, recovered a perfectly placed onside kick off the foot of Frankie Nichols and Nazareth marched down the field and scored again to secure a 24-21 win.

In a spirited rivalry between two Springfield-area schools, Sacred Heart Griffin and Rochester, narrow margins often separate the game known as the Leonard Bowl, between father Ken (Sacred Heart Griffin) and son Derek (Rochester) until Ken retired following the end of the 2022 season.

The two programs have conducted fierce battles in the past with a 11-8 series advantage for Sacred Heart Griffin heading into the quarterfinal clash, and Rochester needed extra time to tighten that margin by one game and reach the semifinals in the process.

Fremd seemed to be taking control of its game with Bolingbrook in the second half of the contest (after trailing 14-0 early), but Bolingbrook wasn’t going to let its surprise postseason run end without a fight.

Trailing 34-27, Bolingbrook marched 85 yards in about four minutes and capped the drive with a touchdown. The Raiders went for a 2-point conversion to attempt to win the game right there in lieu of a potential overtime period but were shut down in a 34-33 loss.

No problems

Several teams also haven’t found the playoffs very taxing to date.

And in some cases that was a little bit surprising.

Many people anticipated that the Mount Carmel-Lincoln-Way East matchup would be a defacto Class 8A championship but if that were true Mount Carmel’s 48-7 win might indicate the Caravan aren’t likely to be pressed at all.

Mount Carmel has outscored its first three opponents 117-48 and only one of those contests were remotely close.

Other teams that haven’t seen much resistance are Brother Rice (outscoring playoff foes 145-8), East St. Louis (165-21) and Wilmington (161-15).

The upstarts

While many of the teams remaining in the playoffs have plenty of playoff pedigree to their names there are a few of the remaining 32 that don’t exactly have rich histories to call back upon.

Just three of the remaining schools (Fremd, Breese Central and Belvidere North) have never made a semifinal appearance in school history.

Belvidere North, who started its varsity football program in 2007, not only had not reached a playoff semifinal the school only had eight playoff victories all-time prior to this postseason run.

Other schools ending substantial semifinal droughts were El Paso-Gridley (2002), Oswego (2003) and Arthur (2004).

CCL/ESCC Power

It is getting to bit of a broken record this time of year.

But the CCL/ESCC continues to dominate the postseason.

There were 10 teams remaining in play heading into the quarterfinals and just one, IC Catholic, failed to reach the semifinals.

Although it is mathematically impossible for private schools to dominate the state finals in the way they did last season where all but Class 6A was won by a private school (East St. Louis), there’s still plenty of opportunity for the CCL/ESCC to have a very heavy presence in the state finals in two weeks.

Due to IC Catholic’s loss, no CCL/ESCC or private schools can still reach the finals in the smallest three classifications.

But there’s at least one entrant in all of the remaining classes from the CCL/ESCC and Class 6A is guaranteed to get at least one school into the final as Nazareth and Fenwick square off in the semifinals and could have both if St. Laurence managed to upset East St. Louis.

A little bit of trickery

Mount Carmel clearly has a ton of talent at its disposal, but the Caravan aren’t above having a little fun with things either.

The Caravan came right out of the box in its quarterfinal game by dialing up a double reverse receiver pass that went for 28 yards on the opening drive and then later tried a flea flicker in the red zone that fell incomplete.

“Kids love trick plays,” Mount Carmel coach Jordan Lynch said. “My wife likes trick plays. She was in attendance today so we had to dial one up. It just keeps the defense on their toes and its another way that you have to cover this offense.”