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St. Edward's back now against wall

An opportunity to become playoff-eligible was virtually there for the taking for the St. Edward football team Friday night at Riverside-Brookfield.

But like Bob Dylan once famously said, the ax just fell.

The Green Wave gave up 35 unanswered points in essentially the fourth quarter in a game that Bulldogs won handily 56-13.

Now, St. Edward (4-4, 0-4 in the Metro Suburban Blue) is in a must-win situation at Wheaton Academy next Friday to secure eligibility.

"We win one more, we'll get in," said a dejected St. Edward coach Mike Rolando. "I guess the bright side is we played about as bad a football as we were capable of playing and we were in the game until the middle of the third quarter."

Things didn't look as tough as that assessment might seem coming out of the halftime locker room. Down 21-6, the Green Wave scooped up an onside kick at the Riverside-Brookfield 49-yard line. Ten plays later, junior quarterback Dylan Mlinarich hit fellow junior Tyler Holte with an 8-yard touchdown pass, and after junior David Madden's extra point, St. Edward was down just 21-13.

The Green Wave stuffed the Bulldogs on their ensuing drive on a fourth-and-1 at the St. Edward 31-yard line, but its ensuing drive ended at its own 44. Riverside-Brookfield got the ball back and junior quarterback Hunter Hughes rushed 20 yards for a touchdown to put his team up 28-13 with 18.7 seconds left in the third quarter.

But the floodgates were just beginning to open for the Bulldogs. Mlinarich got picked off by Joey Quarino at the St. Edward 27-yard line, and one play later, Hughes hit Stefan Giminski with a touchdown pass.

On the Green Wave's next drive, Mlinarich got intercepted by Nicolas Del Nodal, and on the very next play, Del Nodal rushed for a 54-yard touchdown.

And to add insult to injury, Mlinarich's third straight interception, by Jhalen Williams, resulted in a 13-yard touchdown run by Emmanuel Salther. Suddenly, the Bulldogs were up 49-13 and that was that.

Despite throwing 6 interceptions and getting sacked 6 times, Mlinarich went 24-for-41 passing for 241 yards and 2 touchdowns, both to Holte, who finished with 110 yards on 9 catches. Junior Ryan Pomeroy added 6 catches for 85 yards.

"This is not characteristic of how we play," Rolando said. "They play a lot better than this. Across the board … missed tackles, poor blocking, and everything escalated from there."

"We have to do our jobs on defense," added Holte, who had an interception. "If we do that, we're in the playoffs."

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