Huntley falls to McHenry

The 2011 season for Huntley’s football season has been, record-wise, one to forget.

Friday night, the Red Raiders completed their 2011 season with a strong effort but a 31-27 loss at McHenry’s McCracken Field in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division play to finish the year at 2-7 overall and 1-5 in the FVC Valley.

With Huntley leading 27-24 and three seconds left on the clock, Warriors’ quarterback Robert Tonyan scored from 1 yard out on a quarterback sneak to give McHenry the win.

The Red Raiders started off well as Ethan Connor scored on the second play of the game on a 66-yard run to give Huntley a 7-0 lead just 59 seconds into the ballgame. Huntley increased its lead to 14-0 on a 24-yard touchdown pass from Jake Brock to Bryce Beschorner but McHenry would rally for 2 touchdowns within a two-minute period to tie the game at 14 going into halftime.

McHenry increased its lead to 24-14 in the third quarter on a 32-yard field goal by Ulices Guarneros and a Tonyan touchdown pass to Grant Watkins.

Huntley began its comeback with 7:26 to play on a 9-yard run by Connor and took the lead with 2:35 remaining on Beschorner’s second touchdown of the game before Tonyan’s touchdown took the wind out of the Red Raiders and their fans on one of the last plays of the season.

Huntley coach Matt Gehrig said he told his team after the game that they had nothing to be ashamed of.

“I just told them how proud I was of how they played,” Gehrig said. “We had some things that didn’t go our way in the game that we thought we should have from our perspective so we had to overcome some adversity to put ourselves in a position to win the football game.”

Connor led the Huntley rushing attack with a 197 yards on 29 carries and was almost equaled by McHenry’s John Konstantelos, who had 198 yards on the same number of carries.

“We knew McHenry was going to come out and play hard so we knew we were going to have to play four quarters,” Gehrig added. “We came out and played with a lot of guts on that drive (to take the lead) and were able to punch it in.”

Beschorner finished with 5 catches for 59 yards to lead Huntley while John Walker added 46 receiving yards on 4 catches. Tonyan finished 20-for-39 passing for 232 yards and 2 touchdowns each through the air and on the ground.