Fulton too much for Raby

FULTON – In high school football’s “second season,” starting off on the right track can increase the determination for the ultimate goal of a state championship.

That’s what the Fulton Steamers largely did Saturday afternoon at Steamer Field in a 42-0 blanking of Chicago’s Al Raby School for Community and Enrichment.

The Steamers (8-2) cruise into the second round of the 1A playoffs at Ottawa Marquette; they’ll play at 1 p.m. Saturday at Gould Stadium.

Aside from a few more penalties Saturday than they usually see, the Steamers methodically did the job they went out to do: drive, score, and control the tempo.

By halftime, the Steamers had outgained the Raiders 308-45 in offensive yardage and kept that same 6-to-1 ratio by the time the mercy-rule running clock began in the fourth quarter.

“Our effort on the O-line and D-line has been pretty good,” Steamers two-way lineman Kole Schipper said. “Ever since our homecoming week [Week 5], we’ve stepped it up astronomically. Things have come together well in recent weeks, and our mentality has changed since then.”

Ryan Eads started the Steamers’ scoring with a 35-yard run around the right end after 2 minutes, 15 seconds of play for a 7-0 lead after Endi Qunaj’s first of six successful point-after kicks for the day. Keegan VanKampen had a pair of 1-yard touchdown scores; the first came with 4:03 left in the first quarter for a 14-0 lead, and the other came in the third quarter to put his team up 35-0.

Quarterback Patrick Lower took to the air to add to the Steamers’ lead with two passing touchdowns in the second quarter. His scoring strikes to Daken Pessman from 9 yards out and Baylen Damhoff from 11 yards gave Fulton a 28-0 lead at halftime.

“We had a good game plan all week, and if we knew we executed it, we knew we could kind of do anything we wanted to against these guys,” Lower said. “We came out and executed with a five-play drive at the beginning of the game, and we just kept rolling from there the whole first half.”

The Lower-to-Damhoff scoring connection came on a drive which saw the Steamers convert on a second-and-45 situation. A pair of 15-yard penalties pinned the Steamers close to its own red zone, but a pair of double digit-yardage plays, first on a run and the second on a pass, erased the country mile of a setback.

Steamers coach Patrick Lower attested the long conversion to an experienced group of players who have been in many backs-against-the-wall game situations before, he said. The experience also was instrumental in identifying Raby’s blitzes through the middle of the line when those adjustments were made in the second quarter.

“A veteran group like that can tell us what they’re doing, and we were able to open up stuff in the passing game and then open up stuff on the outside,” coach Lower said. “They’ll let us know that, and it makes it easier to call plays like that when they can tell you what’s going on out there.

“These guys have been through a lot of games. They’ve played together for a long time, and they executed very well.”

Jacob Jones scored on a 2-yard scamper in the fourth quarter to force the game clock to run continuously. During the second half, the official time had to be kept by the officiating crew with their own clocks due to a scoreboard malfunction.

Schipper led the Steamers with 1.5 tackles for loss and also recovered a Raiders fumble.

“We need to take out the penalties and just play smart,” Schipper said.

Raby (6-4) didn’t get a first down until quarterback Jalen Monroe’s 14-yard keeper with 26 seconds left in the first half; only one other play from the Raiders saw double-digit yardage. Monroe led the Raiders with 37 yards on 14 carries. Terrian Thomas led the Raider defense with 1.5 tackles for loss.

“They were a lot more physical than we thought,” the younger Lower said, “but we matched it well and did a good job of executing all day.”

The Raiders end their season a far cry from the team they were when this season started. Just four years ago, the program advanced to the 4A semifinals, but the school’s enrollment has decreased since then.

This year’s team didn’t have enough players to form a squad when the preseason started, Raiders coach Eric Harris said, but it finished with about 20. Raby, like all Chicago Public League programs, did not play during the shortened spring season. Harris told his players after the game that their appearance in the state playoffs “set the bar” for teams to come in a new chapter of Raiders Football.

“Our eight seniors helped pool some basketball players together, and players from the freshmen level together,” Harris said. “We created a team, and we created a state [playoff] team, not just a team to where we’re just playing. We finished 6-3 overall, and, yeah, we came out here and got demolished, but the level of expectations now for Al Raby is set. It was an exciting season to come out here and have a season. My boys came out here and fought.”