By Bobby Narang
Now, the fun beings
The Illinois High School Association released the football playoff pairings for the eight classes.
As usual, there were some interesting matchups set for the first round. In Class 8A, York, which finished in second place last season, is set to battle West Suburban Silver opponent Lyons in the first round.
Ironically, the two teams just battled each other in Week 9, with the Lions defeating the York Dukes to set up a unique repeat matchup for the two teams in consecutive weeks.
“It’s tough,” York coach Don Gelsomino said. “Our conference is very difficult, so to see each other back-to-back weeks is different. In high school football, you don’t see that every often. It was a tight game last week, a lot of back and forth. It should be another interesting game. We had the same situation a couple of years ago in the second round of the playoffs. It’s a different feeling.
“Lyons is a really good football team. In Class 8A, after the first round every team is extremely good, but maybe sometimes in the first round, you draw a good team but one you should win and then the second round is an incredible team. But we drew Lyons in the first round.”
In their Week 9 meeting, Lyons running back EJ Kuhlman was an unstoppable force, rushing for a single-game, school-record 246 yards to spark the Lions to a 34-26 victory to keep the Dukes from winning a share of the conference title.
“It was easy to run with the game O-line we have,” Kuhlman said.
The Dukes (6-3, 4-2) have dealt with some upheaval after losing their starting quarterback to a broken collarbone in Week 7, forcing junior Zach Assaad to take over the QB1 duties. Against the Lyons, he had some tough moments by throwing two interceptions, but he completed 20 passes for 238 yards.
The Lions (7-2, 4-2) claimed the conference title by repeatedly relying on Kuhlman to extend drives to build a 34-17 lead.
“Our guys kept believing and fighting and stayed the course,” Lyons coach Jon Beutjer said. “York’s a good football team. I’m proud of our team’s grit because that game could’ve gone the other way.”
In all, the Dukes will look to slow down Kuhlman in their repeat matchup and limit their turnovers after committing for against Lyons on Friday.
“(Lyons) bat us in Week 8 last year and we learned from it and made a nice run, so we’ve got to hope to do the same thing this year,” Gelsomino said.