The Antioch Community High School Sequoits varsity football team suffered a devastating loss to the visiting Grant Community High School Bulldogs with a final score of 54-52 on Oct 18.
The Grant offense could not be stopped in the first half of the game, scoring a touchdown on every single drive. However, the Sequoits offense did enough in the first half to keep the game competitive without star senior running back Martin Cohen, who left the game in the first quarter with an arm injury. At the end of the first half, junior quarterback Colin Arquilla completed a 23-yard pass to senior wide receiver Mason Bussone. Arquilla had statistically his best game of the season, throwing for 98 yards and rushing for another 98 yards. He had one passing touchdown and two rushing touchdowns. Bussone also had a fantastic game with 89 yards and one touchdown.
After halftime, Grant received the ball first. On their first drive in the half, the Sequoits got their first defensive stop of the game. However, the offense could not capitalize on the stop and had to punt it back to the Grant offense. After receiving the ball, the senior running ball Tyler Zdon broke off a 63-yard touchdown but failed the two-point conversion. However, this fired up the entire Sequoits team, which scored 22 unanswered points to make the score 42-35 with only 1:33 left on the clock. Grant drove the ball quickly down the field, helped by an absolute bomb of a throw from Grant junior quarterback Mattew Gipson to junior wide receiver Max Hembrey. They capped off the drive with a two-yard rush from Zdon. They made the extra point and sent the game into overtime at 42-42.
Overtime rules for IHSA football have teams start their drive on the ten-yard line. Grant got the ball first and scored the touchdown but failed to convert on the 2-point conversion. Antioch got the ball and scored a touchdown but could also not covert the 2-point conversion, sending the game into a second overtime. This time, the Sequoits started with the ball, and they got to fourth and inches on the goal but got stood up by Grant on the goalline. After failing to score, the Grant offense only needed a field goal to win. The Sequoit defense stood firm and forced the Bulldogs to kick the field goal attempt on fourth down. The snap and hold on the field goal at
tempt were perfect, but the kicker doinked it off the left upright, sending the game into triple-overtime.
The Antioch defense got a sack on third down to back the Grant offense to the 11-yard line. But, on fourth down, Grant went for it and got into the endzone on a broken play with the quarterback scrambling and finding an open wide receiver in the corner of the end zone. They tacked on a 2-point conversion to extend their lead to eight, but the Sequoits got the ball back with a chance to tie. The Sequoits got the touchdown on a ten-yard rush but could not convert the 2-point conversion.
With the loss, the Sequoits fall to 6-2 on the season and 5-1 in the conference. Despite the loss, they remain atop the NLCC. Next week, they will travel to take on the Grayslake Central Rams to try and clinch another conference title.
