Marist replies to sink Joliet Catholic
By Mike Clark mclark@suntimes.com September 22, 2012 12:12AM
Marist celebrates their victory over Joliet Catholic Academy. | Patrick Gleason ~ For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: October 24, 2012 6:28AM
It didn’t play out the way many expected when Marist hosted Joliet Catholic on Friday night.
The teams hooked up in epic shootouts the past two seasons and had two of the state’s top prospects, Joliet Catholic’s USC-bound running back Ty Isaac and Marist receiver Nic Weishar.
But the defenses managed to keep a lid on it for the most part, and neither Isaac nor Weishar had a touch in the fourth quarter.
But what stayed true to form, at least for this year, was Marist’s ability to make the plays it needed down the stretch. Ian Woodworth hit Bryan Polak with a 23-yard scoring pass with 27.4 seconds left to give the RedHawks a stirring 27-24 win.
Marist (5-0, 3-0) took control of the East Suburban Catholic Conference race after coming from 14-0 down against a ranked team for the second time this fall.
“I’m speechless,” said Woodworth, who finished 26-of-42 passing for 256 yards with two interceptions. “We got it done. We stick together till zeros go up (on the scoreboard).”
That was a necessity on Friday, as Joliet Catholic (3-2, 2-1) went up 24-20 on Tyler Reitz’s 13-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-2 with 1:54 to play.
But Woodworth had more than enough time to march the RedHawks 64 yards on 10 plays, three of them passes to Polak for 48 yards.
“On that (last) touchdown, the middle of the field was wide open,” Woodworth said. “I knew he was going to go right there. ... The O-line did a great job and he made a play.”
Joliet Catholic jumped ahead on a pair of touchdown passes to Isaac, for 21 and 84 yards, both in the first quarter. Isaac gained 11 yards on five carries as he continued to be bothered by a shoulder injury suffered in a Week 1 loss at Providence.
“It’s not as bad as the night it happened, but it’s definitely not 100 percent,” Isaac said. “It’s just going to take time.”
Marist got to within 14-7 on a 1-yard plunge by Steven McGugan, a efensive line starter who ha never scored a touchdown before.
“I’ve been thinking about that since I was in grade school,” said McGugan, who also had two sacks.
Brian Bravo’s 22-yard field goal gave Joliet Catholic a 17-7 halftime lead, but Marist got within 17-14 on a 5-yard TD run by Peter Andreotti (24 carries, 158 yards) in the final minute of the third quarter.
Andreotti’s 1-yard scoring run made it 20-17 Marist with 5:12 left, but Joliet Catholic went ahead again thanks to Reitz (11 carries, 56 yards). Mike Ivlow ran 10 times for 73 yards for the Hilltoppers and Craig Slowik was 10-of-20 for 265 yards passing.
Contributing: Josh Krockey
