Especially odd sequence favors Lake Forest
In a span of just 12 seconds, the fortunes of the Libertyville football team changed Friday night in the Wildcats' North Suburban Lake Division contest at Lake Forest.
After the Scouts' defense stopped the Wildcats with 1:02 remaining in the first half, the punt snap sailed over the head of 6-foot-6 Libertyville punter Ben Kimpler and into the end zone for a safety.
Things would only get more bizarre from there for the Wildcats.
Just 12 seconds later, Lake Forest senior Wesley Janeck returned the ensuing free kick 70 yards for a Lake Forest score. While the second half provided its own version of the unique and bizarre, that 12-second span gave Lake Forest the decisive margin in a 29-20 win over Libertyville.
"(Special teams) hurt us last week, too," said Libertyville coach Mike Jones. "Two weeks in a row, in a short span of time things got out of hand. This week I thought the kids battled back."
The unusual events on homecoming night at Lake Forest started early for the Wildcats. Into the early stages of the second quarter, Libertyville (2-2, 1-2), had the ball first-and-goal inside the Lake Forest 8 and had three more plays inside the 1 yet failed to get the ball into the end zone.
Though the Cats trailed just 6-0 at the time, it was a huge momentum shift for Lake Forest (4-1, 2-1).
"All you got to do is look at the scoreboard to see how big that stand was," Lake Forest coach Chuck Spagnoli said. "(Libertyville) was on, like, the 1-foot line and our kids got some penetration and made a play."
Libertyville did take the lead briefly in the second quarter when senior Taylor Rossmann raced 60 yards for the score, giving the Wildcats a 7-6 advantage before the bizarre set of plays gave Lake Forest the lead for good. This came despite a stellar effort from the Wildcats' defense, which yielded 290 total yards from scrimmage and just 130 through three quarters.
"I still think we are a good football team," Jones said. 'We just made some critical mistakes at the wrong times."
The hosts appeared to salt the contest away from Libertyville after Janeck sped 19 yards for his second score of the night to put the Scouts up 22-7 with 8:52 to go. Janeck was the workhorse for the Scouts, rushing 26 times for 148 yards.
Libertyville answered, and quickly. After having been bottled up by the Scouts defense most of the night, senior quarterback Riley Lees broke off an 80-yard run to set up his own 3-yard scoring play, cutting the margin to 22-14 with 6:52 left.
Back came Janeck and the Scouts again, this time on a 7-yard run to put the game seemingly out of reach - kind of.
Two plays later Lees hooked up with senior Nick Rossetti on a 71-yard scoring play to set the final margin.
Despite the outcome, Lees had another video-game stat line for Libertyville. He rushed 20 times for 134 yards and passed for another 195 yards on 10-of-22 passing.