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SYCAMORE – The Sycamore defense has six shutouts this season. Five against playoff teams, four in the past five weeks and three against teams that reached the quarterfinal round of the postseason.
The Spartans’ defense will face another high-flying offense when Nazareth travels to Sycamore at 2 p.m. Saturday for a Class 5A semifinal game.
The Roadrunners (8-4) have scored at least 29 points in their past six games after failing to crack 20 points in five of their first six. But after a 2-4 start, they’ve won six straight to surge into the semis.
The Spartans beat Sterling 28-0 in a quarterfinal game Saturday. The Golden Warriors came in averaging about 44 points per game, had topped 50 four times this season and 60 twice.
They got 174 yards of total offense against the Spartans (12-0).
“They are in such good position,” Sterling coach Jon Schlemmer said. “Their kids, as a coach you can tell when they know what they’re doing. I don’t think there’s any hesitation with the way those kids play on defense. They play downhill, they play fast, they play with confidence and it shows. We have some really good offensive players, and our offense was really good this year. But today, they were better than us.”
The Spartans had three sacks and three interceptions in the win. Lincoln Cooley, the reigning Daily Chronicle Football Player of the Year, had a sack and a tackle for a loss in the win.
On a second-and-8 run play with the Spartans up 7-0 in the first, Cooley picked up the tackle for a loss, backing the Golden Warriors up 5 yards. The Spartans shut down the third-down play and the defense got the offense back the ball.
Cooley also had a fourth-quarter sack on third down, although the Spartans already were up four touchdowns at that point.
“He continues to play well,” Sycamore coach Joe Ryan said of Cooley. “Your really good players have to play really good this time of year or you’re out. So far our guys are playing real well.”
Kiefer Tarnoki added to those big plays in the second quarter. The Spartans were nursing a 7-0 lead, but Sterling reached the Sycamore 22, facing a fourth-and-3. Quarterback Kael Ryan found Justin Benson on a screen to the outside. Tarnoki was the only defender close, chased him down, and stopped him a yard shy of the marker.
Zack Crawford had two sacks in the win, while Burke Gautcher, Dawson Alexander and Tyler Curtis had interceptions.
“The interceptions came from our guys being really disciplined on the back end,” Ryan said. “The sacks came by our kids having relentless effort, just trying to get at the quarterback. You got to do that to get sacks, you don’t normally get them on your first move. But I thought our back end played well, and that’s what led to the three interceptions.”
The Roadrunners bring plenty of weapons to the game Saturday, including Wisconsin recruit Justin Taylor, who scored two touchdowns against Morgan Park last week in a 29-0 win.
“All year long we’ve been playing fast and physical,” Crawford said. “That’s what our coaches teach us to do. Our defensive line is exploding off low. Our linebackers are scraping well. Our safeties are coming down and filling in when they need to, dropping when they need to. All around if you just play fast and physical like we did [Saturday] we’ll get the job done.”