Marengo and Phillips waited through a 40-minute delay Saturday night as the field at Gately Stadium was plowed by a pickup truck.
Snow or no snow, it didn’t matter to Phillips, which ran the ball with ease in the slick conditions in a 47-13 win over Marengo in a Class 4A semifinal in Chicago.
The win brings coach Troy McAllister’s team one step closer to becoming the first Public League school to win a football state championship. The Wildcats (13-0) will play Belleville Althoff (13-0) at 7 p.m. Friday at Huskie Stadium in DeKalb a year after they fell to Rochester in the final.
“Coach likes these conditions, he said it works in our favor because we were going to run the ball anyways,” said quarterback Quayvon Skanes, who had all 207 of his rushing yards and five total touchdowns in the first half.
“We like to run the ball,” McAllister said. “We came out and got the ball in Quayvon’s hands.”
Skanes ran for a 64-yard TD on Phillips’ second play. The Connecticut recruit added scoring runs of 24, 49 and 22 yards, and he threw a 6-yard touchdown to Qadeer Weatherly on his only pass of the game. Dexter Warren, who had two of the Wildcats’ three interceptions, ran one back 60 yards for a score. Kamari Mosby added a 24-yard scoring run.
The Wildcats led 47-7 at halftime, forcing a running clock in the second half. Phillips totaled 342 rushing yards.
Marengo (12-1) scored on a 6-yard run by Jarren Jackson to make it 14-7 midway through the first quarter, and the Indians added a late TD pass by Zach Knobloch.
“I knew we had to put in the hard work,” Skanes said. “Going into the summer we had to focus on the task at hand, and that was getting back to the state championship.”
Bob Hurst is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.
Player of the game: Quayvon Skanes, Phillips, 12 carries, 207 yards, 4 TDs; 1-for-1, 6 yards, TD.
Key performers: Phillips — Kamari Mosby, 13 carries, 104 yards, TD; Dexter Warren, 2 INTs, 60-yd INT return TD. Marengo — Jarren Jackson, 22 carries, 74 yards, TD; Zach Knobloch 8-for-23, 133 yards, TD.
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