Wildcat Whack: Scouts Beat Libertyville, 42-35 In Wild Week 8 Contest
Around Lake Forest, there are football games every fall. Plenty of them, actually, often until mid-November. We savor them as the sheer scarcity of a season makes each game prized and precious.
But every so often, we are treated to a game like Friday night, one that lives well beyond the final play.
The Scouts beat Libertyville 42-35 in a game that featured everything fans would want in a high school football game: scoring, special teams, defensive stops, takeaways, momentum swings, all in front of a charged atmosphere at Varsity Field, rejuvenated by the debut of a new scoreboard that got in a season’s worth of work in three hours time.
Where to begin? Let’s start with the end.
All week long, the chatter on social media revolved around Libertyville star receiver Blaise LaVista.
“It’s fun,” senior receiver Charlie Markee said of competing against LaVista, a two-way player who went against Markee on defense several times Friday night. “You just have to know you are not always going to come out on top. We go back and forth, in the end, our team comes out on top and that’s all I can ask for.”
The Power 4 recruit delivered Friday night, catching 11 balls for 227 yards. But on the final play, the Scouts got the best of LaVista.
In the waning seconds, the Wildcats driving for a potential tying touchdown, Libertyville faced a 4th and 2 from the Scouts’ 17-yard line. Three consecutive time outs were called by the offense and defense to finalize a course of action.
Everyone in the stadium thought quarterback Quinn Schambow would look for LaVista, in single coverage flanked out wide to the numbers.
“You don’t know what you are going to do on that down. It’s so hard to predict,” Coach Spagnoli said. “We thought they would try and put it in their best players’ hands.”
Schambow did eventually throw to LaVista, running a crossing route towards the back of the end zone. But Schambow had to slide from the pocket and threw it low, and LaVista’s attempt at a catch fell short, defender Ryan Valentincic blanketing him the entire way.
Although the Scouts offense had to take the field one last time for victory formation, the game ended on that play. They had knocked off the undefeated Wildcats.
Bye-bye Blaise. Hasta LaVista, baby.
For the Scouts to be in the position for one play to matter so much, many plays in the three-hour knock down, drag out fight had to go right. And many went wrong.
“The way the game played out, every emotion you can imagine played out,” Spagnoli said.
Just the first quarter alone was enough to exhaust all spectators. Early on, the emotion Spagnoli speaks of was one of anxiety.
Libertyville scored on its first two possessions, the first a 22-yard scoring strike to LaVista, and in leading 14-0, Schambow and the Wildcats offense looked to be unstoppable.
“We knew going in, their offense would be around those three receivers (LaVista, Sam Seth, Stevan Gavric) and they are all really good players,” junior linebacker Jimmy Scheidler said, who grabbed a second-half interception. “Our job was to disguise our looks and drop an extra guy back and be hovering in the middle to take away those slants and posts they love to throw.”
When Lake Forest took over on their 33-yard line with 6:35 left in the first, there was a palpable sense around the Varsity Field the offense had to find the end zone.
A short pass from Danny Van Camp to Jack Burger followed by a long run by Marty Hippel, aided by a Wildcats personal foul found Lake Forest quickly on the 26-yard line of Libertyville. The eight-play drive concluded with a Van Camp touchdown run and in making it a one-score game, Lake Forest shifted emotion to calm energy, knowing they were in a good-on-good game and not chasing points.
“That stems from us knowing we are a good team as well,” Markee said. “We said the whole time, ‘yeah, they are 7-0, they are a good team’ but our coaches told us the whole week they are not unstoppable and we can play our brand of football.”
A 8-yard touchdown pass from Schambow to Sam Seth again upped the margin to 14 points, 21-7 with 1:17 left in the first quarter.
Then it was the Scouts turn to throw a haymaker punch.
On the ensuing kickoff, Hippel found a crease and outran the Wildcats coverage unit down the Lake Forest sideline for a 95-yard kickoff return touchdown. It’s the second kickoff return touchdown for Hippel in three games; he ran one back to start the Stevenson game in Week 6.
Oh, and we still had 1:02 left in the first quarter.
Now it would be up to the defense to go back on the field and get a stop.
They did, concluding the Libertyville four-play drive with a sack on Schambow by defensive end Finn Goodman.
“We were fine, we knew they were going to get a couple. We brought the pressure,” Goodman said. “He was not comfortable back there.”
Said Spagnoi: “In regards to pressure, it’s so hard as (Schambow) gets the ball out so fast. But you can’t just let him not be pressured because eventually, they are skilled enough to get open. You have to pick your poison on times to do it, who to do it with, and who to do it against.”
Schambow ended the game with an astonishing 472 yards passing on 30 completions. On any other night, the Wildcats win the game. But what Lake Forest did was to get Schambow on the ground enough — four sacks total — and turn him over twice. When they got pressure and weren’t able to get him to the turf, they climbed the pocket and did not offer clear escape lanes.
Three second quarter drives for Libertyville ended in punts and a turnover on downs. Because Lake Forest has a good-to-great offense this year, when the defense gets stops, the offense responds, closing out the half with a Van Camp (22-of-30, 299 yards, three touchdowns passing, one rushing) to Markee 38-yard touchdown pass with 2:04 left in the half that gave the Scouts their first lead, 24-21, and they would never trail the rest of the way.
To win games such as this, the Scouts needed some breaks.
Leading 27-21 after a third quarter Tim Dan field goal, the Wildcats got the ball back and scored an apparent go-ahead touchdown. But a block in the back penalty muffed out the score and on the next play, Lake Forest got to Schambow.
Senior linebacker Nick Angelos hit Schambow just as he was releasing the ball, and the Scouts recovered the fumble.
That takeaway and the Scheidler pick both resulted in the same outcome for the offense: a Van Camp to Jack Burger touchdown. The first came on a 4th and 10 broken play, the second, another out-of-pocket throw from Van Camp where Burger found a small opening in coverage, high pointed the ball and with :16 left in the third, gave Lake Forest a three-touchdown advantage, 42-21 (a two-point conversion followed the second Burger score).
But this being a Lake Forest-Libertyville game, it was far from over.
Two quick strikes by the Wildcats offense, both Schambow-to-LaVista hook ups, and in less than two minutes of regulation time, the margin was one score, 42-35.
Lake Forest burned clock on its possession after the second Schambow-to-LaVista touchdown, converting a critical fourth-down attempt from its 29-yard line.
Although the Scouts punted the ball back to the Wildcats, Libertyville had to traverse more field and burn more clock in attempting their final drive.
After the last victory formation kneel down by Van Camp, the win sealed into the record books, players celebrated with their Pink Out Scouts classmates.
It means more when it’s Libertyville, yes. But what this win has given the Scouts is more opportunity to make 2024 a truly special season.
A home playoff game is likely assured and a win over Mundelein Friday means a share of the North Suburban Conference title is in play. That’s an accomplishment not seen by the Scouts since 2011.
“They’re up 14-0 on us, 21-7 on us, we never gave up as our offense put up points,” Hippel said, who finished with 136 yards rushing. “We pushed the pedal in the second half and our defense stood tall.”
Lake Forest now stands tall at 6-2, with a lot of season behind them but much more left in front.
Up Next: a road game at Mundelein (4-4) Friday.
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