Angelo DeSensi, if asked to rank his three sports growing up, likely would have identified football as his third choice.

Basketball was his first love.

The Montini senior thought for a few years that he had a future in the NBA. His dad introduced him to the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan and Derrick Rose at a young age.

Baseball was his dad’s sport, which he played in high school at Holy Cross.

DeSensi loved watching football as a kid, but didn’t see himself as a football player. That all started to change when he looked in the mirror and his growth chart.

“You can’t deny my size and stature,” DeSensi said. “I was pulled on a team when I was very young, tried it and fell in love with it.”

The Montini coaching staff is thankful.

DeSensi, now standing at a cool 6-foot-5, 280 pounds, is the pillar of the Broncos’ offensive line. Montini’s starting left tackle and a third-year varsity player, DeSensi is the meat and potatoes behind a dynamic offense that is scoring just a tick under 40 points per game.

[ Class 4A state preview: Montini vs. Rochester ]

DeSensi and the Broncos (13-0), defending Class 3A champions, will play Rochester (12-1) for the Class 4A title at 7 p.m. Friday at Illinois State’s Hancock Stadium.

Montini is vying for the program’s eighth state championship and second undefeated season.

“It feels great,” DeSensi said. “We have been working really hard in the summer, the preseason and the season keeping that undefeated record. We want to culminate all that work Friday night to go back-to-back.”

DeSensi came in as a sophomore a smaller, thinner version of himself. As any good lineman does, he blossomed through his work in the weight room, worked hard and that translated to the field.

He’s played a little more both ways this season, dabbling some on defense.

“He is a kid that you can count on and rely on all the time,” Montini coach Mike Bukovsky said. “He is a competitive kid, takes a lot of pride in his job, he leads by example and is an excellent student. Guys like him get overlooked a little bit. They don’t have stats, you get into these All-State meetings and it’s hard to get some traction. He doesn’t have those things you look at. He is a guy that has signified the rise of our program.”

DeSensi was always one of the bigger kids growing up, but the height didn’t come until middle school. He had a growth spurt to 6 feet in eighth grade.

He came in as a sophomore two years ago, and got some playing time in the regular season and playoffs. Watching film, though, the technique was not quite there.

“I took my offensive line coach’s coaching to gospel and lived in the weight room,” DeSensi said. “Offseason, going into junior year I gained size and strength. With my technique I spent extra hours before practice making it muscle memory.”

Now DeSensi is the blind-side protector to Montini junior quarterback Izzy Abrams, who has thrown for 3,647 yards and 36 touchdowns this season.

DeSensi does not mind a bit that his role is the unheralded one.

“Those guys, our quarterbacks and running backs and receivers, they work as hard as anybody in practice,” DeSensi said. “They are awesome players to work with.”

DeSensi’s work hardly stops on the football practice field.

A three-sport athlete, he has also continued with basketball and baseball into high school. He carries a 4.16 GPA on a 4.0 point scale.

He’s narrowed down his college choices to Ivy League schools Yale and Princeton, as well as the Air Force Academy.

“It’s a lot, investing time in school, putting aside time and doing homework,” DeSensi said. “It may seem like a lot, it’s a grind but if you want to be great you have to grind. Myself and my teammates, they are all student-athletes.”

“He is a great representation of what a Montini student athlete is all about,” Bukovsky said. “Hard-working kid, does everything the right way on and off the field. He is just a great kid.”