Neuqua Valley’s Jon Rhattigan played with a cast on his right hand to protect a broken thumb, and the senior middle linebacker didn’t think twice about it.
“I’d do anything to be out here,” Rhattigan said.
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He wasn’t alone.
The Wildcats pulled out all the stops in Saturday’s Class 8A first-round game with Glenbard West in Naperville.
Five running backs carried the football, two of them defensive linemen and one a starting linebacker. Seven caught passes.
It put Neuqua in position to win, but it couldn’t prevent Glenbard from getting the last possession.
The Hilltoppers finished it, with Logan Ryan drilling a 31-yard field goal with 12 seconds left for a 31-28 win.
Glenbard (8-2), which moves on to host Homewood-Flossmoor, became the eighth lower-seeded team to advance in a brutally tough 8A bracket.
“Every one of these guys sold out for each other,” Neuqua coach Bill Ellinghaus said. “We just fell a little bit short. I wish we had another three minutes.”
An epic matchup between the defending 7A state champion and the DuPage Valley Conference co-champs lived up to expectations.
Three times Glenbard surged ahead, and three times Neuqua matched with tying TDs. The last came on Cameron Raupach’s 16-yard TD run with 4:44 left, making it 28-28.
Glenbard quarterback Cole Brady then put together a drive that couldn’t be answered.
Starting at Glenbard’s 28 with 1:45 left, Brady passed to Ryan Diver for 34 yards. Five plays later, Brady stepped up in a collapsing pocket and converted fourth-and-8 with a 16-yard pass to tight end Alec Pierce.
Ryan’s right leg did the rest.
“That’s what good quarterbacks do,” Rhattigan said. “He was under pressure and he found a guy open.”
Brady was the difference for Glenbard. He completed 10 of 17 passes for 206 yards with three TDs, including a 76-yarder to Pierce and two to Alex Pihlstrom.
“It seemed like this game would come down to one play, and (Brady) made it,” Ellinghaus said. “Unfortunately they got to kick a field goal at the end and we didn’t.”
Neuqua (8-2) won its first eight games, but a loss to Glenbard North in Week 9 left the Wildcats with an unfavorable draw.
Glenbard West is 10-0 in first-round games the last 10 years, reaching at least the semifinals the last four.
“Major respect to their program,” Rhattigan said. “It definitely didn’t feel like a first-round game.”
Raupach rushed for 126 yards on 20 carries. His 51-yard TD with 1:09 left in the third quarter answered Glenbard West’s 14-play scoring drive.
He had company in the Neuqua backfield.
Defensive lineman Tommy Ciesla, who had one carry and one catch all regular season, caught a 3-yard TD pass from Jake Eskoff for a 7-0 lead.
Ciesla, fellow lineman Jackson Keating and linebacker Casey Larson all got carries. The Wildcats even went to a three-back jumbo formation.
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Jack Bastable’s 1-yard QB keeper forced a 14-14 tie at halftime.
“That was the game plan, to pound the ball up the middle where we thought they were vulnerable,” Ciesla said. “We fought hard on both sides of the ball and we just came up short.”
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.