Metea Valley and Lake Park, each with two wins entering Week 6, faced what could have been considered a must-win game to keep their playoff hopes alive in Aurora on Friday.
Metea grabbed a 9-0 lead in the first quarter, but couldn’t hold on as the howling wind and Lake Park’s defense combined to stymie the Mustangs. The Lancers capitalized on two short punts and its defense to emerge with a 21-12 DuPage Valley Conference victory.
Conner Lovely finished a short early drive with a 23-yard field goal, and Ben Sanchez pounced on a Lake Park fumble only one play later at the Lancer 20-yard line.
“I made my read and went in and grabbed the ball after I saw it drop. I was supposed to make that tackle anyway,” Sanchez said.
Several plays later, Amiri Finner took a direct snap in a Wildcat formation and skirted left end for a 2-yard touchdown. Metea (2-4, 2-4) seemed to be in control with a 9-0 lead and 7:54 remaining in the first quarter.
“It was just a play we worked on this week to catch them off guard. I got good blocks and got to the outside for the score,” Finner said.
But the Lancers (3-3, 3-2) began their comeback when quarterback Jaron Fields, facing a fourth-and-2, punched it into the end zone from 4 yards after a great fake. It culminated a 56-yard drive near the beginning of the second quarter.
Led by Maurice Burkley (23 carries, 126 yards), the Mustangs were impressive in driving to the Lake Park 12 but were turned away on downs.
“We got some penalties that stalled our drives and we didn’t recover,” Metea coach Ben Kleinhans said. “Mo (Burkley) ran hard all night — pretty impressive against that defensive front, but we didn’t finish off.”
Bad luck struck quickly for Metea near the end of the first half as Lovely’s punt was knocked down by the wind and enabled the Lancers to score on a short drive. Fields again carried it in to push Lake Park to a 13-9 halftime advantage.
Lovely finished a time-consuming, third-quarter drive with a 27-yard field goal to pull the Mustangs withing 13-12, but later shanked a punt under pressure to again give the Lancers good field position.
Nathan Faruzzi raced for a 10-yard TD to start the fourth quarter and give Lake Park its eventual winning margin. The Lancers kept possession most of the second half by continuing to run the ball.
“The effort was there the whole game, but it was just execution,” Finner said. “We weren’t there to make tackles and weren’t finishing.”
“Our offense was executing in the first half, but kind of broke down in the second half,” Burkley said. “The wind took momentum out of us, but we can’t let something like that be an excuse for a loss.”
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Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for the Beacon-News.