And the beat goes on. Barely.
The Providence juggernaut, with its gaudy 47-game winning streak in tow, rolled into Oak Park on a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon to take on Fenwick in a game that turned out to be more than worthy of the weather.
Providence left three hours later with a 23-15 victory, but this was a classic example of a game being closer–much closer–than the score would indicate.
With 75 seconds left, it looked as if the Celtics would suffer their first loss since the final game of their 1993 season. Fenwick, which spotted Providence 14 points in the first quarter, had just scored a touchdown and added a two-point conversion to take a 15-14 lead.
But Celtics quarterback Adam O’Reel calmly passed the Celtics down to the Friars’ 4-yard line. Then, with 26 seconds left, Mike Godfrey coolly kicked a 21-yard field goal to seal Providence’s 48th consecutive victory, the second-longest streak in Illinois state high school history.
Eric Steinbach picked off Fenwick quarterback Sean Toolan’s last pass with no time left on the clock and returned it 46 yards for the final six points of the game.
“I don’t know how it looked to you guys,” Providence coach Matt Senffner said, “but I’ve got to believe that this has to be up there with the all-time great games. I’m so impressed with the way they came after us. Our kids are in a state of shock. I think it’s safe to say we dodged a major bullet.”
Friars coach Paul Connor agreed with Senffner’s appraisal of the game.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our kids,” Connor said, “particularly Sean Toolan. He’s a shortstop and a point guard and a quarterback, and he’s just so confident. You can knock him down, but you can’t rattle him. And their kids just win. That’s all they do.”
O’Reel wound up the afternoon 11 of 27 for 121 yards and two touchdowns, and tailback Justin Ruggio racked up 108 yards on 24 carries. For Fenwick, Toolan totalled 165 yards and one touchdown on 10-of-17 passing and ran for 40 more yards, tops among the Friars (3-3, 1-2).
Providence (6-0, 3-0) looked like it would wrap up the game early when O’Reel capped the Celtics’ first two possessions with scoring strikes of 28 yards to David Popp and 6 yards to Mike Vatch.
But Fenwick settled down halftime, and with 59 seconds left in the third quarter, the Friars scored on a 5-yard pass from Toolan to Marty Sloan. Their second TD, by Marc-Henry Romeus plowing in over the left side, was set up by a nifty 57-yard misdirection play with Toolan rolling right, then throwing left to a wide-open David West.
