Third-quarter blues: Lemont scores 21 straight points after halftime, knocks QHS out of playoffs

QUINCY — Coming out of the halftime locker room, Quincy High School football coach Rick Little and his counterpart at Lemont, Bret Kooi, had to play a bit of a chess game.

Kooi’s squad led 17-10. Little had first choice and elected to receive the second half kickoff. Kooi was left to decide whether he wanted the strong wind blowing into Flinn Stadium from the west to be at his team’s back for the third quarter or the fourth quarter. He chose to have the wind behind his team for the third quarter. 

Kooi’s move wound up being a prudent one as Lemont rattled off 21 straight points in the quarter and cruised to a 38-24 victory in a second-round game of the Class 6A playoffs. Top-seeded Lemont moved on to face Chicago Kenwood in a state quarterfinal game next weekend. The Blue Devils, meanwhile, saw their season end with an 8-3 record.

“The wind was a big deal,” Little said. “So field position is a big deal.”

After being whistled for a block in the back call on the second-half kickoff, the Blue Devils took over from their own 10-yard line. On the third play of the half, Quincy quarterback Bradyn Little fired a pass over the middle that deflected off Lemont’s Nathan Kunickis and into the hands of Roberto Patino, who took the ball 25 yards for a score and a 24-10 Lemont lead.

On Quincy’s next drive, Lemont’s Jason Piskule, wearing a cast on his right hand after an injury, intercepted a Bradyn Little pass to set Lemont up in Quincy territory. Seven plays later, Lemont tailback Nate Wrublik scored from 8 yards out to extend the lead to 31-10,

The Lemont lead swelled to 38-10 when Lemont quarterback Payton Salomon hit Kunickis for a 9-yard scoring strike, Salomon’s third passing touchdown of the game.

“(The wind) affected me a little, but you can only control the controllables,” said Salomon, who finished with 151 yards and completed 12 of 16 passes. “Stuff like that shouldn’t bother us.”

Quincy’s passing offense was stuck in neutral for much of the game. Bradyn Little was able to finally find a bit of a rhythm in the fourth quarter, but it was too late for the Blue Devils to make a serious run.

“It was tough for us to get things going for us, especially since our pass game is such a huge part of our offense and it helps us open up the run,” said Bradyn Little, who completed 17 of 37 passes for 151 yards and three interceptions. “(The Lemont defense) made us do some things that we didn’t want to do.”

Early on, it appeared that it might be Quincy’s day. Lemont’s Luke Wallace fumbled the opening kickoff, giving Quincy prime field position with the wind at its back. The Blue Devils managed just 14 yards on the drive and had to settle for a 28-yard field goal by Justin Beaver for a 3-0 lead a little more than a minute into the game.

Quincy’s defense came up with a big play later in the quarter as Todd Smith blocked a 33-yard field goal attempt by Patino, and the Blue Devils went into the second quarter holding that 3-0 cushion.

“These guys amaze me every day with the things they do and the way they approach things,” Rick Little said. “They don’t know what they don’t know and they just go out there and make plays. We felt good about it early.”

With the wind at his back for the second quarter, Salomon got comfortable. He unleashed a 36-yard bomb to Wallace on the first play of the quarter as Lemont grabbed a 7-3 lead. 

Kooi said it just happened that Salomon, who threw only two passes in the first quarter, went deep at that time.

“We weren’t looking at (the wind) whatsoever,” Kooi said. “It was the given situation. Payton is capable of throwing into the wind. It’s sort of nice that you don’t have to worry about it.”

Wallace scored later in the second quarter on a 23-yard reception, making two would-be Quincy tacklers miss on the way to the end zone.

In the second half, when Lemont needed to ice the game, it turned to Wrublik. He finished with 221 rushing yards on 35 carries as Lemont piled up 428 yards of offense.

Sophomore tailback Jeraius Rice, who had Quincy’s only TD in the first half on a 4-yard run, had a pair of fourth-quarter rushing touchdowns, scoring from 34 yards and 1 yard. He finished with 109 yards on 18 carries. 

“The plays they made changed the game,” Rice said of Lemont. “We didn’t give up and kept fighting, but it just wasn’t good enough.”

Quincy finished the season with a slew of new records as Bradyn Little rewrote the school’s single-game and single-season passing records. A young core returns for the Blue Devils, who counted heavily on juniors and sophomores, mixed in with a talented senior group.

“We have a bright future ahead of us,” Rick Little said. “Nothing is guaranteed, but the biggest piece is knowing that the seniors left something behind and they left something better than they found it. They can be proud that they balled out every Friday night.”