The theme all season for the Stevenson football team dictated that, when a play absolutely had to be made, the players would find the means to achieve their end.
At the Huntley 37-yard line, facing fourth-and-10, senior quarterback Aidan O’Connell rolled out left to create enough time and space to make a play.
Huntley defensive end Olalere Oladipo, 6-foot-4 and athletic, had other ideas and closed down the left side of the Patriots’ offensive line and sacked O’Connell for a 12-yard loss with 3 minutes, 12 seconds remaining Friday night in Lincolnshire.
Stevenson never saw the ball again and saw its eight-game winning streak come to an end in a 21-20 loss at the hands of the Red Raiders in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs.
Stevenson’s offense had been firing on all cylinders for weeks, but Huntley found an answer when it mattered most.
“It’s better to look back on the good times of the season than the bad,” O’Connell said. “That’s what I am trying to focus on right now, celebrating the successes rather than being disappointed about the failures.”
O’Connell completed 20 of 30 passes for 324 yards and two touchdowns and finished the year with 26 touchdown passes and 2,736 yards. Senior wide receiver Henry Marchese caught 13 touchdown passes. He broke free of the Huntley secondary on the second play of the third quarter for a 65-yard touchdown pass, marking Stevenson’s final lead at 20-14. But the point-after attempt sailed wide right, and that proved to be costly.
Marchese caught five passes for 120 yards. His twin brother, Michael Marchese, scored on a 34-yard pass in the second quarter for his seventh touchdown of the year. He finished the game with nine catches and 87 yards.
Stevenson (8-2), the ninth seed in a loaded 8A field, scored on its first two possessions but missed opportunities down the stretch. The fourth-down sack of O’Connell marked the fourth time the Patriots lost the ball on downs. The deepest drive of the second half put Stevenson at the Huntley 11-yard line in the fourth quarter, but a first-down holding call and a subsequent interception in the end zone derailed that possession.
“I was pretty successful, but when my team needed a play, I don’t think I played as well as I could have,” O’Connell said. “That’s what bothered me the most. I really did not perform at the end of the game, in the fourth quarter, like I wanted. That’s what I will think about for a long time.”
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A big-play Stevenson attack that came in averaging 36 points a game fell short of its heightened standards.
“We needed to be a little more explosive earlier in the game, in the first and third quarter when we had the wind,” Stevenson coach Bill McNamara said. “We made a few too many mistakes in all phases of the game.”
The Patriots’ senior class ended its tenure with one of the most successful runs in the history of the program. Stevenson reached the semifinals in 2013, won the Class 8A championship in 2014 and reached the second round last year. This loss was the earliest departure from the state playoffs since 2008.
“I have been thinking about my four years. After the game, I told a lot of the younger players not to make this a job,” O’Connell said. “Have fun with it, and have the time of your life. That’s what I did.”
Patrick Z. McGavin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press