St. Francis loves victory at Vernon Hills

It was Kyle Bosch’s turn to speak.

The 6-foot-5, 290-pound junior offensive lineman stood before his sweat-soaked St. Francis teammates after a thrilling 22-21 defeat of host Vernon Hills on a muggy Friday night.

“That win wasn’t about how many weights you lifted or how many sprints you ran,” the small house said to Spartans. “That was about what’s here.”

Bosch then pointed to the spot between the 7 and the 9 on the front of his jersey.

His heart.

Jack Petrando’s legs also played a significant role in the victory. St. Francis’ tireless, tough junior rushed 31 times for 200 yards and scored the clinching points on a 2-point conversion burst with 4.1 seconds left.

“My legs were cramping all night, all over the place,” Petrando said.

But he never had to exit the field.

“Just kept stretching my legs,” he said.

St. Francis (2-0), down 14-0 at the half, trailed 21-14 at 3:25 of the fourth quarter, after a 13-yard keeper by VH quarterback Steve Nelson and Jeremy Cohen’s extra point.

Consecutive penalties by the Cougars (1-1) forced them to kick off from their 25-yard line.

St. Francis started its winning drive from the VH 49.

Spartans quarterback Nick Donati passed for only 37 yards all night, but 26 of them came on the visitors’ final possession. He found junior wideout Dan Beck for a 7-yard touchdown, paring the Cougars’ lead to 21-20 with 4.1 seconds left.

St. Francis went for 2 points.

Went for the victory.

Donati handed the ball to Petrando, who, thanks to Bosch and his line mates, found plenty of daylight in the night game.

Exhilaration ensued shortly thereafter.

And Spartans football coach Greg Purnell hugged practically everybody in sight.

“Right now, I’m really happy for the kids, really proud,” he said. “We played a terrible first half, for the second week in a row. But we fought so hard there in the second half. Proud … I’m so proud of what our kids did to win this.”

Petrando scored on a pair of 1-yard TD runs to even matters at 14-14 in the fourth quarter.

VH tallied twice in the second frame after a scoreless first quarter. Dylan McNamara (14 rushes, 43 yards) scored on a 4-yard TD, and senior Tyler Peterson (2 receptions, 60 yards) caught a 35-yard pass from Nelson (7-for-9, 123 yards).

“They made one more play than we did,” said Cougars coach Tony Monken. “Two very good programs … playing hard. We all knew, there at the end, they were going to give the ball to (Petrando) and block for him. We had to stop them there. We didn’t. One more play – they made one more play than our guys did.

“What a great game,” he added. “What a great test.”