Mustangs Bounced from Playoffs by Neuqua Valley

For a couple of minutes Friday night, Downers Grove South's football team felt it was about to win yet another playoff game in its storied history.

Josh Williams had just scored a 22-yard touchdown run and added a two-point conversion to give the Mustangs a one-point lead on Neuqua Valley in the Class 8A playoff battle with 8:40 left.

But the next play from scrimmage changed the momentum, and Neuqua never looked back. Neuqua's Trent Snyder broke off a 50-yard run and went on to score two touchdowns down the stretch as South's season ended with a 36-22 first-round loss to the Wildcats.

"I felt on top of the world at that point," said Mustangs quarterback A.J. Simoncelli after DGS had taken a 22-21 lead. "It was a great feeling and we felt like we were going to win the game at that point. It just didn't work out the way we wanted it to. They gained that momentum back pretty fast."

It was a long road for South (7-3) to get to that point. The Mustangs scored the first touchdown of the game, a 15-yard scoring strike from Simoncelli to Ryan Oruche in the first quarter. But Neuqua (7-3) scored three touchdowns in the second quarter to take a 21-6 lead into the break.

"Our message was that nothing is changing," South coach John Belskis said. "We're not going to change our plays. We're going to have to block better, throw and catch, and defend better, but we're not going to change our game plan. You can tend to do that when you get behind like that."

Neither team dented the scoreboard in the third quarter, but on the second play of the fourth quarter, Williams got the Mustangs back into the game with a 1-yard TD run and two-point conversion, cutting the lead to 21-14.

"You would have thought we were down 40-0 the way it was on the sidelines for a moment," Neuqua coach Bryan Wells said.

South's defense then forced a three-and-out and received a gift in the form of a 12-yard punt to set the Mustangs up at Neuqua's 27-yard line. Two plays later, Williams broke free for a 22-yard TD run. After a penalty on Neuqua moved the ball inside the 2 for the conversion, Belskis rolled the dice and went for two. Williams rewarded him by converting it, making it 22-21 DGS.

But the next offensive play, Snyder busted out 50 of his 223 rushing yards. The burst set up his 9-yard TD run, one of his four in the game, to give Neuqua the lead for good.

Simoncelli then tossed an interception on the Mustangs' next play and Snyder immediately scored from 16 yards out to suddenly make it 36-22 Neuqua.

"Normally, we've been able to finish those deals here at Downers Grove South," Belskis said. "Tonight, we didn't. We battled through a lot of injuries this year. We never had all our bullets in the gun this year, and the kids were in a position to win every game, so you have to give them credit."