By Pat McGavin-Photos by Renee Kaspar
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ADDISON— The Illinois Jr. Celtics 12U players no doubt felt they were going up against two different opponents.
The Addison Cowboys stood immediately in front of them.
The Jr. Celtics also held up their own particular mirror to themselves, and wondered where it went wrong.
“I just felt like the theme of the year was we’d always get a huge play, and it would almost always get called back for a penalty,” two-way lineman Camden Dvorak said. “It was pointless.”
The defense by the Jr. Celtics was spectacular and always up to the challenge, creating turnovers and multiple fourth down stops. Even a great defense is unfairly burdened at defending a three-yard drive.
Mistakes and a lack of a consistent offense doomed the Jr. Celtics in their 6-0 loss to the Cowboys in Chicagoland Pop Warner league play at Addison Trail High School on Sunday, October 11.
The Cowboys scored with 4:29 remaining after a tipped pass at the line of scrimmage yielded an interception thrown by the Jr. Celtics. The Cowboys started the winning-drive at the three-yard line.
The difficulties of the Jr. Celtics’ offense were evident from the start.
One play after Greyson Johnson forced and recovered a fumble, the Jr. Celtics looked to take advantage. Quarterback Ryan Ripoli broke around the left edge for an apparent 10-yard gain. Instead the play resulted in a net negative of -5 yards after the Jr. Celtics were cited for a 15-yard penalty for an illegal block.
Every positive action appeared to be stymied by an equally negative reaction.
“We had a lot of penalties,” Tomasino Urso said. “After that we tended to get down on ourselves, or do the blame game. Everyone’s blaming each other. We just had to remember to do what we’re good at, stick with our blocks and play our positions right.”
No matter how hard it tried, the offense could never get its own footing down. Ripoli shifted to quarterback from wide receiver. He brought some swagger and athleticism to the role. The trade off was the team lost its top outside receiving threat.
The team tried to counter the loss of Ripoli as an outside receiver with the pounding and aggressive running game of Johnson. He had some intermittent success, going up the middle or breaking outside.
More often than not, the offense was thrown into uncomfortable areas of second or third and long. That proved simply too big of an ask for the Jr. Celtics’ offense.
“They were blitzing a lot, and that made it very tough for us to try and move the ball consistently,” Johnson said. “It was tough to match up all the blockers to how many guys they were sending.”
With the offense mostly stuck in neutral, the defense rose to the occasion. Johnson started things out on the right note with the early fumble recovery.
Following a late first quarter interception by the Cowboys, the Addison team reached its deepest penetration of the first half inside the red zone.
Johnson again stepped up by blitzing the gaps and recording a 10-yard loss. The Jr. Celtics created a turnover on downs by forcing back-to-back pass incompletions. The team escaped the threat.
“Everybody knew their responsibilities, and we had some new guys, or guys new to their positions, who really stepped up and did their jobs,” Johnson said.
Codero Barry, Kaiden Powell and Rex Schultz did admirable work in shutting down the Cowboys at the line of scrimmage. Powell had two tackles for loss, and five overall stops. Barry also had two tackles for loss.
Ripoli was also a disruptive force playing out of the defensive backfield. He made a great deflection to deny a touchdown in the first half. He also stepped up and made some big tackles off the edge.
The Cowboys had two elite playmakers with their outside receivers. The bigger of the two sometimes took direct snaps in the Wildcat formation. He actually had caught a touchdown pass in the third quarter off a double-pass that was ruled an illegal formation.
“We had to do everything possible to step up and try to stop No. 30 and 12,” Schultz said.
Powell did everything possible to shadow the talented receiver.
“Everytime No. 12 moved or shifted, I looked to follow him because I knew that’s where the ball was going to my side,” he said. “I thought we did a great job with that, and making sure they didn’t hurt us.”
The difficulties of the Jr. Celtics’ offense in sustaining drives put correspondingly hard pressure on the defense. Except for the short-field touchdown drive, the defense delivered with inspired and passionate play.
Linebacker Joseph Shanahan and defensive back/kicker Brayden Ruth also stepped up with huge plays.
“We studied a lot of film, and we always made sure one guy followed No. 12, and another guy followed No. 30,” Dvorak said. “We just stayed contained on them, and made sure that we had them down. The rest, after that, was pretty simple.”
The two different quarterbacks for the Jr. Celtics threw a combined three interceptions. The final interception was simply too great of an obstacle to overcome.
The team played with drive and determination. Up until the final seconds, the Jr. Celtics never gave up and showed toughness and style.
”This is a team with a lot of pride, no matter the scores of the game,” Johnson said. “What I’ll think about afterwards is how many of us have the chance to be Division I players.”
With their backs repeatedly up against the wall, the Jr. Celtics never went down easy. Even in the most adverse moments, the team showed urgency and passion.
With one final drive to get back into the game, the Jr. Celtics tried everything possible to push the ball down field.
“No matter how we did, I think I’m always going to remember playing with this group of guys,” Dvorak said. “They’re my best friends out there,” Dvorak said.
Even in the most trying of circumstances, Schultz said the team found release and fun.
“What I’ll remember the most was before the practices, and we’d all be out running passing routes with the linemen and the defensive backs,” he said. “It was fun.”
Despite the season-ending 6-0 loss, the Jr. Celtics’ 12U team had many standout contributors. They were Casey Gahan, Dean Copack, Anthony Baniewicz, Romeo Brooks, Jonathan Collins, Joshua Hart, Austin Flynn, Bryce Szczepaniak, William Mikaitis, Jaxson Manning, Anthony Bruni, Declan Kirk, Eli Schubert, Luke Husenger, William Janik, Asher Kokolus, Michael Zana, Connor Seltzer, Beau Pasquale and Liam Berlard.
