This isn’t just any old Antioch football team.
The Sequoits, picked for fourth place in the North Suburban Lake conference, made a huge case for the conference championship with a 41-6 dismantling of perennial power Libertyville on Saturday. It was Antioch’s first victory over Libertyville since 1991.
The Sequoits (5-1, 2-0) dominated Libertyville in every facet of the game, including special teams where Antioch’s Adam Jordan kicked two field goals and Eric White returned a blocked field goal 55 yards for a touchdown.
“It was the best performance we’ve had in a while,” coach Del Pechauer said. “Everything was going right for us.”
Antioch was selected to finish behind Stevenson, Warren and Libertyville in the six-team conference. “It was an accurate assessment,” Pechauer said.
Antioch has not won more than six games since 1983, when the team had a 9-0 regular season.
Antioch’s only loss came in Week 1 to Mukwonago (Wis.) 14-0. Since then, the Sequoits have outscored their opponents 168-61. Antioch is tied for first with No. 11 Warren. Now, the Sequoits have a chance to win the conference title outright with games against Stevenson (4-2, 1-1) and Warren (6-0, 2-0) in the next two weeks.
Volleyball report: No. 1 Downers Grove South and No. 2 Mother McAuley completed a tough week of competition with solid finishes in the Nike Challenge.
The Mighty Macs barely had time to catch their breath after winning the Rich East Rocket Tournament the week before. In the next seven days they played four nationally ranked opponents.
McAuley started the week with an unbeaten record and finished with a 17-4 mark. They lost to Downers on Tuesday, Asssumption on Thursday and then to Mira Costa in the Challenge semifinals and then to St. Francis in the Challenge third place game.
Downers South, 18-2, lost to Assumption in the Challenge but then defeated Pius XI of Milwaukee and surprising St. Ignatius to take fifth place. The defending Class AA state champions were 4-1 at the Challenge and dominated in their consolation play.
Soccer update: There’s little doubt that Lincoln-Way is the No. 1 boys soccer team in the Chicago area. The Saints have, arguably, the best player in the state in Ned Grabavoy and are coming off a runner-up finish in the 1999 Class AA finals.
But are the Knights unbeaten?
That’s the question being posed by Downers Grove South coach Mike Wiggins, who hosts the Great Midwest Classic each season. In that tournament last month, Lincoln-Way faced Edwardsville for the title and wound up with a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation play. The game went directly to a shootout instead of sudden-death overtime and Edwardsville won that phase 8-7.
“The game should count as a loss because that’s how the tournament was set up,” Wiggins said.
Lincoln-Way coach Brian Papa, who notes he wasn’t notified until the second half of the Edwardsville game that the teams would go to a shootout, said he doesn’t care if his team’s record is listed as 13-0-2 or 12-1-1. (The Tribune counts the game as a tie and will continue to do so.) But he does raise an intriguing point.
“What if we run he table?” he asks. “Will we be an unbeaten state champ?”
