By Bobby Narang
Football is thriving in Elmhurst.
The 2021 Fall season is turning into one of the best in Elmhurst history.
For years, IC Catholic Prep carried the town’s name with pride by winning three straight State championships, in 2016 and 2017 in Class 3A and a 4A championship in 2018. The Knights lost just one game in the three-year run.
A few miles away, York High School head coach Mike Fitzgerald started slowly in building a program with similar aspirations. Four years later, Fitzgerald has his program ahead of schedule, won the first six games to earn the program’s first playoff appearance since 2011. The York Dukes and IC Knights both were undefeated through six games, with the Dukes leading the West Suburban Silver Conference and the Knights on top of the Metro Suburban Blue standings.
Friday Oct. 8, both programs played at home, with Hinsdale Central spoiling York’s historic season with a stunning comeback in a 27-23 victory. The Dukes led by 16 points early in the fourth quarter, but the Red Devils, 6-1, 4-0, stormed back to score 20 points in the final 10 minutes.
A week after earning a program-defining victory at Glenbard West, the Dukes fell apart in the fourth quarter against a resilient Hinsdale Central team. The Dukes, 6-1, 4-1, will play at rival Willowbrook Friday.
“I thought we had control of the tempo of the game, but then we just hit a lull,” Fitzgerald said. “(Hinsdale Central) is a good football team. Sometimes a loss can be the best thing for you. It invigorates you.”
IC Catholic Prep head coach Bill Krefft certainly hopes to avoid a loss this season. The Knights were coming off sloppy road victory at Wheaton Academy, but fixed all their flaws in a key showdown against a one-loss Riverside-Brookfield team.
The Knights built a 35-0 lead to cruise to a 55-14 victory over the Bulldogs, 5-2. Playing in front of a large home crowd on a warm evening, the Knights rode their sophomore tandem of quarterback Dennis Mandala and wide receiver Kareem Parker to their seventh victory in a row.
Mandala tossed six touchdown passes to finish with 270 yards passing. Parker caught four passes for 92 yards and touchdown.
“It’s a great feeling to come here and show people what I can do at quarterback,” Mandala said. “The offensive line gave me the time to throw the ball. Kareem really helped. He’s a great player and is definitely going far in his football career.”
Parker did his work in all three phases, intercepted a late first quarter pass and raced 36 yards for a touchdown. He was a factor in the return game as well.
“The defense forced the quarterback to make a bad read, so it came right to me and I took the interception right to the end zone,” Parker said. “It felt amazing for the team to come out strong and prove that we’re IC. It feels special to help this team. It’s very special to be a part of the IC program.”
The Knights will play host to Bishop McNamara Friday.
Another “football team” in Elmhurst is on its way to the playoffs with high expectations. The Timothy Christian boys soccer team concluded the regular season with a 7-1 victory over Hinsdale South. The Trojans, 13-2-3), are one of the top teams in Class 1A.
“There’s always a lot of emotions in the last game of the season at home,” Timothy Christian boys soccer head coach Joel Zielke said. “We’ve had great support all year from our fans. We certainly wanted to make it special for our seniors. They all got to start and contributed. I think five of the six seniors scored a goal tonight, which is fantastic. You couldn’t write it any better. We have six seniors who are the foundation of this group. We’ve had a great regular season, and are focused on making a deep run in the postseason next week.
“We feel good about our chances. We played a good regular season schedule. Our mentality is in the right spot. We’ve won in a lot of different ways this year. We never feel we’re going to be out of it. Our goal is to get to State. With no postseason last year, we have some guys still from that (2019) team who want to finish the job. We have a lot of excitement going into the playoffs. We’ve been tested, and feel we’re ready to go.”