One of Brian Doll’s missions when he took the football coaching job at New Trier in 2014 was to turn the Trevians into the best team in the Central Suburban South.
That’s no easy task, considering Maine South has won 14 consecutive conference championships.
On Friday, Oct. 9, the Trevians lost to the Hawks for the second time under Doll, this time by a 24-21 score in Northfield. With the win, Maine South extended its conference winning streak to 73 games. It was a game New Trier led 14-3 at the 9:07 mark of the second quarter.
Even after the loss, Doll said he believes the Trevians are the better team. But he also said no one outside of the program is going to buy that until New Trier can beat Maine South on the field.
“We could have won the game, but we let it slip away,” said Doll, who’s 16-3 overall and 6-2 in the Central Suburban South in two seasons at New Trier. “We want to beat [the Hawks]. We feel like we are better than them. … We have to get that [first] one, so there’s not this overbearing feeling. We had an amazing opportunity this year.”
Maine South scored three consecutive touchdowns to go up 24-14 with 4 minutes, 26 seconds remaining in the third quarter. But New Trier cut the deficit to three, 24-21, on senior Colin Casas’ 4-yard run at the 9:56 mark of the fourth.
After junior defensive back Eric Nicholas’ interception on a halfback pass midway through the fourth, New Trier had another chance to either tie the game or take the lead. But on third-and-8 from Maine South’s 38-yard line, junior quarterback Clay Czyzynski threw his first interception of the game at the 1-yard line with 2:40 left in regulation.
With one first down, Maine South ran out the rest of the clock on its next series.
Two days later, the turnover still ate at Czyzynski, who finished 11-for-26 for 132 yards and two touchdowns. He also carried the ball 14 times for 63 yards.
“It bothers me that I didn’t take care of the ball like I should have,” Czyzynski said. “I have no idea what I was thinking throwing it down there like that. I usually hit the shorter routes, and I should have hit [senior] Christian Miller with a dump pass for the first down.”
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Doll said the Trevians made mistakes at the wrong times on Friday, Oct. 9. Some of those included a pass interference penalty that led to Maine South’s first touchdown. New Trier had another one on the Hawks’ second touchdown, but it was declined. Then on Maine South’s third touchdown, the Hawks converted three third downs during a 12-play drive.
“I think most of our mistakes were communication problems,” Nicholas said. “We have to prepare ourselves better in practice. But this game isn’t going to change the way we think about ourselves. I know we are a really good team that can compete with anybody in the state.”
While New Trier (6-1, 2-1) has two more games remaining in the regular season, starting with a trip to Glenview on Friday, Oct. 16, to play Glenbrook South at 7:30 p.m., Czyzynski said some of the players already have talked about next year’s matchup with Maine South.
“All of us juniors have this game circled on our calendars,” he said. “I want to prove to others that we are better and we can beat them. For now, we just have to keep moving forward as a team and focus on the next opponent.”
Twitter: @harnesspreps