South Elgin's gambles pay off against Streamwood
Streamwood decided to try a different strategy to open the second half of its Upstate Eight game against South Elgin Friday night.
The Sabres relied on their triple offense in the first half and trailed the host Storm 21-0 at the intermission.
Streamwood opened the third quarter with an onside kick. The Sabres recovered the ball and ended the drive with a touchdown.
South Elgin then turned the tables on its guests. The Storm responded with four touchdowns, three resulting from their own recovered onside kicks, in less than two minutes to break the game open and win 57-8.
The victory raised the Storm's overall record to 6-0 (5-0 in conference) and secured a playoff berth.
South Elgin attempted the onside kicks in an effort to keep the ball out of Streamwood's hands according to Storm coach Dragon Teonic.
"They caused a lot of problems for us when we were on defense because they were able to maintain possession. We felt like if we gave the ball back to them they would grind it out again," Teonic said. "I thought the onside were the way to go. The first one was successful, we went down and scored. We then went for two and after that we were going to let it roll and see what we could do with it."
Although it did not end in a touchdown, the Sabres' first drive of the game took nine minutes off the clock.
Streamwood's successful third quarter drive which ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by Mickey Estrada kept South Elgin's offense off the field for more than five minutes.
After the score, the Sabres tried another onside kick. This time the Storm recovered. The ensuing drive ended at 6:12 mark of the third frame with an 8-yard Mason Montgomery scoring run.
South Elgin then recovered its own onside kick. On the next play from scrimmage, Montgomery (77 yards in 4 carries) scored his second TD on an 11-yard run.
Again, the Storm executed a successful onside kick and scored on the first play of the drive - this time on a 45-yard pass from quarterback Jordan Jones to Montgomery.
Once more, South Elgin attempted an onside kick and retained possession of the ball. And again, the Storm scored in one play. With 5:03 left in the third quarter, Jalen Jones ran 53 yards for the touchdown.
Brandon Belk scored the Storm's last touchdown on a 7-yard run with 4:18 left in the fourth quarter.
South Elgin was limited to three possessions during the first half but made the most of them. The Storm ended all of the drives in the end zone. With 1:33 left in the first quarter, Jordan Jones (four carries for 81 yards) scored the first touchdown on a 23-yard run.
Jordan Jones only completed two passes in the first half but both were TD strikes. The senior connected with Jalen Jones for a 31-yard scoring pass at the 5:54 mark of the second quarter. The duo teamed up again on the first play of the Storm's next possession. Jones, the quarterback, threw a pass from South Elgin's 20-yard line that Jones, the wide receiver, caught at midfield and outran a Sabre defender to cross the goal line with 1:01 left in the half.
South Elgin held Streamwood (1-5, 1-5) to 173 yards. Estrada accounted for most of the yardage, rushing 29 times for 129 yards.