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| JD Mattingly hauled in this pass for St. Teresa on Friday, but it was brought back due to a flag on the play. The passing game did come up huge as the Bulldogs ran their record to 6-1. |
DECATUR -- St. Teresa certainly isn't making it easy on themselves.
After putting together 14 unanswered points last week to narrowly beat Sullivan-Okaw Valley, the Bulldogs decided to make it a little tougher on Friday.
Coming out of halftime 14 points down, St. Teresa was a different team on both sides of the ball, scoring 21 unanswered to stun Tuscola 28-21 on Friday night and almost secure the Central Illinois Conference title.
It's a far cry from when the Bulldogs opened their season with a brutal loss to Tolono Unity. Now, St. Teresa morphed into a team that embraced the adversity.
"Between this week and last week, it's just been unreal," Bulldogs coach Tim Brilley said. "The amount of heart our kids have, there's no quit in them. From Week 1 to now, we've gotten so much better. We're just competitors."
Part of the reason is the emergence of sophomore Ryan Fyke at quarterback. After a 7-for-21 performance in Week 1 and then Patrick Althoff stealing the passing spotlight in Week 2, Fyke has shown the ability to craft late drives by himself.
After a tipped pass was intercepted, Fyke finished the second half 8-for-11 for 113 yards and two touchdowns. That comes after the sophomore helped lead the comeback last week with nearly the same numbers.
"It's skyrocketed," receiver JD Mattingly said of Fyke's improvement. "He's been doing great. His accuracy is doing better every time. He keeps hitting receivers right in the chest."
But St. Teresa showed it can still run the ball -- and did it for the final touchdown where it ran seven of the eight plays. Fyke, CJ Stuart and Jake Handley all had carries before Handley scored. The Bulldogs leading rusher -- Zach Jarrett -- caught a pass for a 13-yard gain.
It's been a bit of a change the past two weeks when St. T has run more of a balanced offense instead of relying heavily on Jarrett. But the Bulldogs have seemed to arrive where Brilley wanted them to go.
"That's always been the idea," he said. "You've got to respect both if you want to be good and win games against good teams. You can't be one-dimensional any more, not with the schedule that we play.
"You know, Zach's going to get his, and so is CJ and Jake, but Ryan's proved two weeks in a row now that he can lead us as a sophomore."
Through 24 minutes, though, it looked like Tuscola was going to dethrone the only undefeated team in CIC play. The Warriors looked dominant, and the only touchdown they allowed came after a cornerback tried to jump a route and Taylor came up with a 56-yard gain.
Bates was 5-for-8 for 154 yards and a touchdown while his line barely let any St. T linemen through. Dalton Hoel was electric in the passing game and came up with an interception off a tipped pass.
But the Warriors couldn't have looked any different in the second half. Part of that was Nick Bates leaving the game for a drive and the line not quite having the same protection as before. After the second drive of the game, where Tuscola had a touchdown called back for illegal motion, the Warriors couldn't close out a score from St. T's 9-yard line and never came that close again.
"We didn't execute," Tuscola coach Rick Reinhart said. "The bottom line is they made plays and we didn't. If we play like we did -- the key is we're down on the nine yard line to go up three scores and we don't score, and they made some plays."
In the standings, it's clear St. Teresa's at the top.
Now 5-0 in the CIC, they can wrap that up with a win against Shelbyville next week. The Rams can make it interesting by beating Sullivan-Okaw Valley today to stay in contention.
Freshman Dalton Hoel was a bright spot for the Warriors, coming up with two interceptions and finding openings on defense time and time again at receiver. He's brutally hard to take down for someone who's 5-foot-6, 145 pounds. It's no wonder he's back to field kicks.
But Hoel is a threat at punter at well. Sure he can take off, but he showed off his leg with a 50 yard coffin corner punt to the six yard line in the third quarter.
It nearly all fell apart as they faced fourth-and-1 at the 3 yard line.
Not seeing what he liked, Brilley called timeout. Tuscola followed suit after they saw St. T's formation.
Fyke saved the drive by rolling out to his right, hitting Mattingly in the end zone for a score.
"Before they called timeout, it was originally going to be me running the ball," Fyke said. "And then they saw what we were going to do, so we ran that back and it ended up working."
"I've got to give coach (Nick) Blackburn credit," Brilley said, "because I wasn't going to call it. He's our offensive guy and he called the play. We knew they were going to be aggressive and we didn't want to run the same play coming out of the timeout. That was a run-pass option, and (Fyke) probably could have ran it. He gave me a heart attack."
Penalties.
The Bulldogs had 9 for 96 yards -- helped contribute to a first-and-36 in the first quarter and erased a first-half touchdown. The possession ended in an interception.
After putting together 14 unanswered points last week to narrowly beat Sullivan-Okaw Valley, the Bulldogs decided to make it a little tougher on Friday.
Coming out of halftime 14 points down, St. Teresa was a different team on both sides of the ball, scoring 21 unanswered to stun Tuscola 28-21 on Friday night and almost secure the Central Illinois Conference title.
It's a far cry from when the Bulldogs opened their season with a brutal loss to Tolono Unity. Now, St. Teresa morphed into a team that embraced the adversity.
"Between this week and last week, it's just been unreal," Bulldogs coach Tim Brilley said. "The amount of heart our kids have, there's no quit in them. From Week 1 to now, we've gotten so much better. We're just competitors."
Part of the reason is the emergence of sophomore Ryan Fyke at quarterback. After a 7-for-21 performance in Week 1 and then Patrick Althoff stealing the passing spotlight in Week 2, Fyke has shown the ability to craft late drives by himself.
After a tipped pass was intercepted, Fyke finished the second half 8-for-11 for 113 yards and two touchdowns. That comes after the sophomore helped lead the comeback last week with nearly the same numbers.
"It's skyrocketed," receiver JD Mattingly said of Fyke's improvement. "He's been doing great. His accuracy is doing better every time. He keeps hitting receivers right in the chest."
But St. Teresa showed it can still run the ball -- and did it for the final touchdown where it ran seven of the eight plays. Fyke, CJ Stuart and Jake Handley all had carries before Handley scored. The Bulldogs leading rusher -- Zach Jarrett -- caught a pass for a 13-yard gain.
It's been a bit of a change the past two weeks when St. T has run more of a balanced offense instead of relying heavily on Jarrett. But the Bulldogs have seemed to arrive where Brilley wanted them to go.
"That's always been the idea," he said. "You've got to respect both if you want to be good and win games against good teams. You can't be one-dimensional any more, not with the schedule that we play.
"You know, Zach's going to get his, and so is CJ and Jake, but Ryan's proved two weeks in a row now that he can lead us as a sophomore."
Through 24 minutes, though, it looked like Tuscola was going to dethrone the only undefeated team in CIC play. The Warriors looked dominant, and the only touchdown they allowed came after a cornerback tried to jump a route and Taylor came up with a 56-yard gain.
Bates was 5-for-8 for 154 yards and a touchdown while his line barely let any St. T linemen through. Dalton Hoel was electric in the passing game and came up with an interception off a tipped pass.
But the Warriors couldn't have looked any different in the second half. Part of that was Nick Bates leaving the game for a drive and the line not quite having the same protection as before. After the second drive of the game, where Tuscola had a touchdown called back for illegal motion, the Warriors couldn't close out a score from St. T's 9-yard line and never came that close again.
"We didn't execute," Tuscola coach Rick Reinhart said. "The bottom line is they made plays and we didn't. If we play like we did -- the key is we're down on the nine yard line to go up three scores and we don't score, and they made some plays."
Aren's take
Jarring to watch
It's strange to watch two teams flip as wildly as St. T and Tuscola. But in a season where it's obvious there's no clear, dominant team, it's almost become the norm.In the standings, it's clear St. Teresa's at the top.
Now 5-0 in the CIC, they can wrap that up with a win against Shelbyville next week. The Rams can make it interesting by beating Sullivan-Okaw Valley today to stay in contention.
Watch out for
Nick Bates took Tuscola by storm as a sophomore, but they have someone even younger who has the same ability to steal the show.Freshman Dalton Hoel was a bright spot for the Warriors, coming up with two interceptions and finding openings on defense time and time again at receiver. He's brutally hard to take down for someone who's 5-foot-6, 145 pounds. It's no wonder he's back to field kicks.
But Hoel is a threat at punter at well. Sure he can take off, but he showed off his leg with a 50 yard coffin corner punt to the six yard line in the third quarter.
Play of the game
Late in the third quarter, after Patrick Althoff corralled in another interception, the Bulldogs put together the first signs of life from the offense.It nearly all fell apart as they faced fourth-and-1 at the 3 yard line.
Not seeing what he liked, Brilley called timeout. Tuscola followed suit after they saw St. T's formation.
Fyke saved the drive by rolling out to his right, hitting Mattingly in the end zone for a score.
"Before they called timeout, it was originally going to be me running the ball," Fyke said. "And then they saw what we were going to do, so we ran that back and it ended up working."
"I've got to give coach (Nick) Blackburn credit," Brilley said, "because I wasn't going to call it. He's our offensive guy and he called the play. We knew they were going to be aggressive and we didn't want to run the same play coming out of the timeout. That was a run-pass option, and (Fyke) probably could have ran it. He gave me a heart attack."
One thing
There's an area St. Teresa can work on to help the first-half woes right away.Penalties.
The Bulldogs had 9 for 96 yards -- helped contribute to a first-and-36 in the first quarter and erased a first-half touchdown. The possession ended in an interception.
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