No fewer than seven Princeton alums were coaching in the Illinois preps this season, four of whom are still in the playoff hunt.

Nick Vujanov (’96) has stayed in the Tiger program, now in his seventh season under three head coaches. He coaches the running backs and is the F/S offensive coordinator. His son, Anthony, is a freshman Tiger.

The list of playoff coaches includes Todd Stevens (’90), an assistant at Washington, Matt Seidel (’91), an assistant at Morris, and Aaron Towne (’95), an assistant at Grayslake Central. Morris (5A) and Washington (6A) have reached the quarterfinals.

Other PHS grads active in the coaching ranks include Brent Becker (’94), head coach at Lincolnshire Stevenson, Chris Waca (’91), an assistant at Ottawa, and Garrett Younggren (’09), an assistant at Harvard.

The PHS coaching tree doesn’t stop at the state lines. Blair Hubbard (’97) is head coach at Broomfield, Col., back in the 4A playoffs, and Nathan Fisher (’00), defensive coordinator/DBs coach at Davenport North just across the river.

Quarterfinal history

Princeton is 3-1 in previous quarterfinal play, defeating Alleman 27-14 on the way to the state finals in 1989, Rochester 48-21 in 2002 and Paxton-Buckley-Loda 38-12 in 2019. Their only quarterfinal loss was to IC Catholic in 2015, their opponent again for this year’s quarterfinals.

Saturday’s game will be the Tigers’ first on the road in quarterfinal play.

Pearson tops PHS playoff wins

Last week’s 40-0 win over Fairbury Prairie Centrai was the sixth playoff victory for Princeton coach Ryan Pearson in three appearances, now standing 6-2.

He becomes the winningest playoffs coach in school history, surpassing the late Randy Swinford, who led the Tigers to a 5-2 playoff record from 1989-94, including the 1989 state runner-up squad.

“Any time you get put in a category like that (Swinford) is pretty special,” Pearson said.

Other PHS coaches with playoff wins are Joe Ryan, 1995-2003 (3-3) and Jesse Snyder, 2012-16 (2-1).

Pearson now stands 12-6 as head coach in the playoffs including stops at Canton (4-2), Gilman Iroquois West (1-1) and Flanagan-Cornell-Woodland (1-1).

Saturday’s game will mark Pearson’s seventh quarterfinal as either a player or coach. His first came as a player for Stark County in 1998 in which the Rebels won and wound up second in 1A. He was an assistant coach for two quarterfinals at Pontiac (5A/4A 2007, ‘10) and one at Carthage (2005) and head coach for one at Canton (4A 2016) and now two at Princeton.

Clippers sail to 8-man semifinal

Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio (7-4) has made a surprising run to the semifinals of the 8-Man semifinals, defeating Millegeville (10-2) last week. The Missiles sank the Clippers 24-12 in Week 2.

The Clippers will meet Orangeville (10-1) at 1 p.m., Saturday, at the Harbor in Amboy, looking to avenge a Week 8 55-6 loss to the Broncos.

LaMoille senior Joe Quest plays both ways for the Clippers at fullback and defensive tackle and sophomore Giovanni Gatza plays on special teams. Ohio sophomores Vincent Zembrzuski and Troy Anderson are also seeing playing time on special teams with Zembrzuski manning a tackle position.

FND Team of the Week

Players from Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio, Princeton and St. Bede were picked to the final Friday Night Drive’s Team of the Week for the second round playoff games.

Princeton’s Payne Miller, who contributed eight tackles for the Tigers’ defense that limited Fairbury Prairie Central to 71 net yards offense, all rushing, and just two first downs, in Princeton’s 40-0 win, was one of four defensive linemen chosen.

St. Bede’s Anton Cain was one of three wide receivers chosen. He had four receptions for 135 yards in the Bruins’ 47-20 loss at Ridgeview-Lexington.

A-L-O quarterback Tucker Lindenmeyer threw for 148 passing yards and two TDs and rushed for another score in the Clippers’ win over Milledgeville.

Last man standing

Princeton was the only one of the five Three Rivers to advance last week. St. Bede lost 47-20 at Ridgeview-Lexington in 1A, Newman lost 42-7 to Wilmington, E-P lost 42-27 to Kankakee McNamara in 2A and Kewanee lost 48-21 to Chicago Phillips in 4A.

Former TRAC member Fulton beat Ottawa Marquette 55-12 to advance to the 1A quarterfinals. The Steamers (9-2) will play at Lena-Winslow (9-2) at 1 p.m. Saturday.