By Bobby Narang- Photos by Gary Larsen
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ALGONQUIN— The Lockport 13U Jr. Porters had a simple gameplan on Sunday afternoon.
Nothing was fancy about the Porters’ main objectives entering their road game against the Algonquin Argos. Playing on a grass field, the Porters made a point to single out three players – Max Michalski, Cayden Barnes and Ayden Garcia.
Still, the Porters put a bigger emphasis on slowing down the strong and athletic Michalski.
“Our focus was taking away three players because those were the three guys we noticed,” Lockport coach Brian Furczyk said. “They have a nice deep threat and a team we match up against, a nice grinding team that we knew we had to play well against.”
Four quarters later, the Porters executed their gameplan to near perfection, combing solid play along the offensive and defensive lines, getting key plays on special teams and not allowing the home team to build any momentum with long drives or big plays.
The Lockport Porters scored a touchdown in each of the first three quarters, but they had to hold off a furious rally by the Argos to pull out a 22-18 victory. The Porters iced the victory by recovering an onside kick in the final seconds, when Brody Ullrich dived on the loose ball to the relief of his coaches and teammates.
For the Argos, the four-point loss was hard to digest because the team showed tremendous will by bouncing back from a 16-6 deficit with strong play in the final two-plus quarters.
“Lockport is a very stout team and always has been,” Argos coach Dustin Covarrubias said. “Last year we lost I think by the very exact score. Now, we have a 20-day layover before we play in the state championship game.”
Lockport linebacker Brian Furczyk said the defense was locked in during the whole game, particularly zeroed in on Michalski.
“The defense played strong and we had a lot of blitzes and our defense tried to stop number zero,” Furczyk said. “We came up big and worked hard in practice. We have a good defense because of the amount of work we put into our practices.”
Michalski said the Porters have a strong defense, but the Argos fell victim to a series of mental and physical mishaps that cost them a potential victory. Michalski scored on a 1-yard TD to cut the deficit to 16-12.
“They have a good defense, but we made some stupid plays,” Michalski said. “It stinks because I feel this is a team we can beat, but we beat ourselves. We moved the ball pretty good and had some good catches and plays, but we have to learn from our mistakes. We made too many of them.”
The Porters (6-2) maintained momentum for the playoffs by jumping all over the home team in the first half. The Porter “D” started the game off on a hot note, stopping the Argos’ first drive with an excellent tackle from Joseph Ponterio on fourth down to end a six-play drive.
Sensing a chance to seize the momentum, the Porters came out with vigor on offense on their first drive of the game. The visiting team opened the series with an 11-yard pass from quarterback Luke Schumacher to Richard Hiller. Four plays later, Schumacher hit paydirt with a 39-yard touchdown pass to Ponterio who broke a few tackles and then turned on his speed to dart away from the defense for an 8-0 lead with 2:29 left in the first quarter.
The Porters had to wait much longer than expected for their second possession of the game after the home team sliced the deficit to 8-6 and recovered the subsequent kickoff via an onside play. Still, despite suffering from some fatigue, the Porters defense hung tough and forced the Argos to end their drive on downs thanks to a pair of pass deflections by Jackson Sibick, most notably on fourth down.
Lucas Salazar set up the offense by recovering a fumble by the Argos on their fourth drive of the game. With 1:46 left until halftime, Schumacher was all business on the drive. He took advantage of the good field position, seeing a big hole in the middle of the Argos defense on fourth down. Schumacher took the snap, went two steps back then unleashed himself by running up the middle and cutting to his left for a 13-yard touchdown run to raise the lead to 16-6 with 51.8 until halftime.
The Lockport offensive line consisted of several players, but mainly Anthony Mottola, Filip Lizak, Maxim Wozniak, Luke Conser and Nedas Ludavicius. The O-line keyed a third-quarter drive that ate up 55 yards and nearly seven minutes. Schumacher capped the long drive with a nine-yard TD run up the middle and also going left again for a 22-12 lead. The 11-play drive was highlighted by a deep pass along the sidelines for 38 yards.
Schumacher said he took what the defense gave in on both of his TD runs.
“They weren’t designed runs, but I just that there were going to be open holes,” Schumacher said. “The linemen did great out there blocking for me. The offense was clicking today. It was beautiful out there. The O-line was zoning in on their best player. We had two guys on him and we ran away from him.
I played safety and corner, so I was happy to see.
“We practice a lot, but this was one of our better overall games. We had so many deflections and the pick on defense and blocked the kick, Offensively, we scored three touchdowns, so it was beautiful and a big team win.”
Ponterio said the whole team banded together to play a complete game to pull out the inspiring road victory.
“We basically had a whole defense just about their best player because we thought that was their main guy, so the whole defense revolved around him,” Ponterio said. “It worked, so I’m happy about that. The defense was going nonstop and our quarterback had some good passes and our wide receivers made some good catches. It was an overall commitment by the entire team to play a good game.”
The Argos fell into a 22-12 hole in the second half, but they fought back behind quarterback Maddox Schroeder, who tossed a 52-yard TD pass to Cayden Barnes earlier in the game. Schroeder lofted a 13-yard TD pass to Barnes with 12.7 left in regulation for the final score of the game.
“(Lockport) dominated on the line and we just missed some of our blocks, so we couldn’t run the ball really well,” Barnes said. “In the passing game, we had some good plays.”
Furczyk said the kids have been focused for the whole season, building a strong bond through hard work and commitment to winning.
“It’s a great group of kids, the fourth year together,” the Lockport coach said. “We’ve been through a lot. We’re really playing well. They listen and play with a lot of heart. We made a couple of changes, when we noticed on certain designed plays they were getting up certain holes and we took our kids to take it.”
“Our quarterback has good football IQ and the boys understand staying on the blocks and things opened up for us. Defensively, Brody and Lucas came up with big plays. These boys have that heart and grit and feed off each other and understand things really well. This is a good group of coaches and kids.”
Carson Russell, who plays running back and safety, said the O-line was the main spark in the victory.
“The O-line did a great job blocking for everyone,” Russell said. “We had a great defensive play to shut them down. Everyone played well. It Was great, the best game we’ve played all season.”
Salazar had a gigantic interception late in the game and Bradley Holland recorded two sacks on the home team’s final possession.
The Lockport Jr. Porters also received contributions from Allan Nemec, Wes Ramirez Jr., Jaxson Sinople, Evan Burlan, Brennen Boettecher, Cayden Blasé, Bradley Holland, John Rosa and Jacob Allison.
