By Francisco Avila- Photos by Alexa Bordick
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PLAINFIELD- Homecoming week is a special event. one that is celebrated many teams this time of the year. It is Festive day culminated by a football game that is highly attended and players are asked to perform at their best for teh home crowd.
Its also a day where many come together and share in a meaningful celebration from volunteers working the games to parents and cheerleaders supporting the players.
Among those that took part in this memorable and annual occasion was the 9U Saints of Plainfield.
Participating in the Chicagoland Pop Warner Youth Football League, the Saints welcomed a visit from the Aurora Gators to help celebrate their festive Homecoming Day.
Sadly for the Saints, the hardly ideal weather was a prelude of the end result, as the Gators were victorious against their hosts in a heartbreaking ending that saw the visitors winning the football game in overtime, 13-12.
“We played well. We played good up front on offense,” said head coach, Dave Henderson following the loss. “Our quarterback played a hell of a game today. We were moving the football, but just couldn’t get it in the end zone any more than we should have, but we didn’t. And then at the end of the game, we just had a couple of bad mistakes on defense and put them in a position to win the game. But overall, I thought we played pretty well until the end of the game.”
The Saints opened up the first quarter with proven defensive work and solidity as Theodore Gaynor produced a strong, solid tackle for the Saints. This was followed with a great run to the edge by Noah Napoles
The first touchdown of the day came on James Finnigan’s impressive run up the middle to make the score 6-0 ater the failed extra-point attempt.
Right before the end of the first quarter, the Saints lead was ended after the Gators tied the game to make the score 6-6.
Defenses truned up their pressure for both teams which resulted in a scorless second quarter.
The third quarter was much the same as the second. Both the Gators and the Saints defense were keeping offenses at bey and limiting what the others offense could do
For the Saints, their defensive line and strong tackling prowess kept the Gators offense faltering as nothing they tried worked much against the aggressive Saints pressure.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that both teams began to play with higher intensity and produce a more vibrant game of football.
The fourth quarter began with great defensive solidity shown by powerful tackles from Sebastian Ramirez which proved to be vital to keep the Saints in the game. After Ramirez’s big-time tackle, both teams went into overtime with the game tied at 6-6.
The Chicagoland Pop Warner’s Youth Football Overtime rules has each team given the opportunity to score. Dramatically, Declan O’Donnell scored what looked to be a winning touchdown with a thrid down run up the middle into the endzone but the Saints missed the one-point conversion.
Up 12-6, they now had to defend and keep the Gators from scoring.
Unfortunately, the Gators did end up scoring on a run up the middle, and won the game when their conversion was successful for the final score of 13-12.
Declan O’Donnell spoke post-game commenting on his performance, and the loss.
“Pretty good. Well, I think our team could do better,” said O’Donnell. “We played hard, and we just got to work harder.”
Despite the loss, every player apart from the players who the coach spoke about, performed to the level expected and played a great game. Those players included Van Wheeler, Aidan Thompson, Cole Berg, Matthew Green, Roman Zaborniak, Joseph Lata, Drew Ehling, Angel Becerra, Dylan Gould, Julian Lyons, and Ethan Moore. Travis English, Jase Diversey, Christian Boor, Joseph Major, Alfred Shirley, Theo Honiotes, Sebastian Ruiz, Josiah Villalobos, Richard Gaynor, and Declan Guleserian.
