There isn’t much senior Kyle Steinhofer doesn’t do for South Elgin.
He starts at wide receiver and at cornerback. He’s also the team’s kicker and returns kicks and punts.
In the Storm’s Class 8A playoff opener Friday night against Belleville East, he needed to do a little bit of all of that, which is just fine by him.
“I’m happy to be on the field as much as I can,” he said. “Doing whatever I have to do to help this team is great.”
It wasn’t quite a great escape, but Steinhofer scored three touchdowns and kicked four extra points as host South Elgin rallied to top Belleville East for a 28-20 first-round victory.
The Storm (10-0) will host Maine South, a 24-0 winner over Bolingbrook, in the second round.
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Steinhofer scored the winning TD on a 9-yard reverse and kicked the extra point to give the Storm a one-point lead. He added a 5-yard TD catch from Jacob Sullivan in the final minutes after Christian Tecza’s interception.
“‘Steiny’ is unbelievable,” South Elgin coach Dragan Teonic said. “Big players have to make big plays.”
The reverse Steinhofer scored on to give South Elgin the lead is a play that should be familiar to Storm fans. They don’t call it often, but when they do, it works.
The Storm went 4-for-4 on the play last season with Jalen Jones. Steinhofer is now 3-for-3 on the play this season.
“We felt their whole defense was shifting toward the motion,” Steinhofer said. “As soon as everyone was crashing down, we saw the edge, and once I got around that D-end, there was nobody there.
“It was just a great read on the defense there.”
Teonic saves the play for when his team really needs it, and that was the situation Friday with Belleville East (5-5) holding a 20-14 lead in the fourth quarter.
“We needed some sort of a counter,” Teonic said. “Those kids do a good job with it. We don’t call it all the time. You don’t feel like it’s too much of a risk as long as the exchange happens, and it did.”
South Elgin recovered an onside kick after that TD, but the drive stalled.
On the ensuing drive, Tecza picked off Armon Vinson for the only time all night, returning it 40 yards to the 5. Steinhofer, uncovered on the outside, tried to get Sullivan’s attention.
He did, and Sullivan lobbed the ball to him in the end zone. The extra-point kick pushed the lead to 28-20.
The Storm was flagged for an illegal man downfield, but Belleville East declined the penalty, letting the score stand to get the ball back with 1:58 left and two timeouts with a chance to tie the game.
“We didn’t know if we wanted to waste the clock there, but I got the chance and they declined the penalty,” Steinhofer said. “Was it smart? Probably not, but it worked out in the end.”
Belleville East could not get a first down. The Lancers did get the ball back again with 27 seconds left but ran out of time.
“We are fortunate to get out of here with a win,” Teonic said. “Our kids were very, very tough and it was a great game.
“It’s the playoffs. An 8A football game, you can’t take anything lightly.”
Not at all. Mason Montgomery, meanwhile, ran for 124 yards on eight carries and Jordan Green added 103 yards on 18 carries. Steinhofer finished with seven catches for 77 yards.
Now, the Storm receive a measuring stick against perennial power Maine South.
“We just need 48 minutes,” Teonic said. “They can be better than us 364 days of the year. We just need to be better one day.”
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Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.