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| SportsSaturday, November 24, 2007 11:40 PM CST |
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Metamora wins 5A with 17-14 victory over Morris
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- It’s been a long time between first-place football trophies for Metamora. The Redbirds needed a 26-yard field goal from freshman Brennen VanMieghem with :27 left to beat Morris, 17-14, to win the Illinois High School Association Class 5A title Saturday at Memorial Stadium. Metamora won the Class 3A title in 1975, the first year the school qualified for the playoffs. Since then, the Redbirds qualified for the playoffs 23 times and made it to the title game seven more times, losing six before Saturday’s victory. “I don’t know if it’s a monkey” off my back, Metamora coach Pat Ryan said. “If we didn’t win this one, we would have gone in the record book as losing the most (title games). It’s kind of nice to see what it’s like to win one.” Adam Duvendack picked off a pass and ran it 29 yards to the Morris 18 with 1:37 left in the game. Four plays later, VanMieghem kicked a ball that traveled end over end and was hooking left. “I didn’t look at it real well,” Ryan said. “But I kind of peeked.” But it was good and the Redbirds hung on to win. “He earned his letter today,” Ryan said. “The game was tied. It would have been a lot tougher kick if we were down by two. We called a timeout because I didn’t think we were going to get it off. We didn’t want to be rushed with it. The last thing I wanted to do was move it back 5 (yards). What a nice kick for him.” The Redbirds (14-0) offense headed into Saturday’s game averaging 464 yards per game and had scored 56 or more points five times. But Morris (11-3) held them to 285 yards. Purdue-bound quarterback Caleb Terbush led the Redbirds with 109 rushing yards on 22 carries and threw for 77 yards. Brock Gray (21 carries, 78 yards) and Duvendack (four carries, 20 yards) each had rushing touchdowns for Metamora. Morris was outgained 190-48 in the first half but trailed just 7-0. They scored twice in the third quarter on a Stephen Wagner 1-yard run with 6:51 left in the period and Adam Tondinis 23-yard run with :44 left. Tondini led the Redskins with 87 yards on 15 carries. The Redskins opened the season losing 16-13 to Pontiac and 51-15 to 6A powerhouse Joliet Catholic Academy. They turned things around on Sept. 7 with a 30-19 victory over Oswego and made it to a championship game for the ninth time in team history. “I told these guys (after the second week) that we were all right,” Morris coach George Dergo said. “I told people all along we have a good ball team. They worked themselves into a championship situation but came up a little short.” Get area high school sports scores and statistics at Varsity Sports. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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Saints Fan wrote on Nov 25, 2007 9:11 PM:
Irish Dan wrote on Nov 25, 2007 8:52 AM:
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