Red Devils roar back
Heuer scores 3 TDs, including Lowell’s first and last, in rally from vs. Kankakee Valley
Joey Heuer started and finished Lowell’s improbable comeback against visiting Kankakee Valley on Friday night.
The junior running back had a 59-yard touchdown run with 39.5 seconds left as the Red Devils topped the Kougars 28-21 in a Northwest Crossroads Conference showdown.
Kankakee Valley (5-1, 1-1) led 21-0 at halftime before Heuer initiated a rally for Lowell (5-0, 1-0) with a 95-yard TD on the second-half kickoff.
“Being around these kids, it’s a never-quit attitude. … They’re my brothers,” Heuer said.
The game appeared headed for overtime, but Heuer broke the go-ahead run to complete Lowell’s 21-point fourth quarter.
He finished with 160 yards and two TDs on 22 carries.
“It’s just heart and grit from the whole team right there,” Heuer said of his decisive TD. “I hit the hole hard and hit the cutback lane.”
With the score tied at 21-21, Lowell took possession at its 34-yard line with 4:38 left. But Kankakee Valley registered a sack, and Brandon Gillespie recovered the fumble at Lowell’s 25.
But Riley Blank recovered a fumble at the 11 with 1:47 left to give Lowell one more chance.
“I told the kids, if we get down inside the 50, then we’ll start thinking about scoring,” Lowell coach Keith Kilmer said.
“We kept running to the boundary to get out of bounds, and (quarterback Cameron Stojancevich) was like, ‘Let’s go to the wide side of the field.’ When you have an athlete like Joey Heuer, good things happen.”
Kankakee Valley was making things happen in the first half. The Kougars scored on each of their first two drives.
Markus Ritchie hauled in a 30-yard TD pass from Eli Carden on the opening possession. Logan Parks’ 3-yard TD run capped a 17-play drive with 11:50 left in the first half to make it 14-0.
Sparked by a 16-yard completion from Carden to Ritchie on a fake punt on fourth-and-3 from the 44, that duo combined again for a 38-yard score with 18.8 seconds left in the first half. Ritchie, who had seven catches for 94 yards and the two TDs, kicked his third extra point to give the Kougars a 21-0 cushion.
“That’s a good football team,” Kilmer said. “They’re big, physical. That quarterback’s talented. We just wore them down a little bit in the fourth quarter. We got a few breaks here and there and just never gave up.
“That was our halftime talk. You can’t worry about the score. It’s just a matter of what’s inside. You have to be willing to play every play for the next 24 minutes and see what happens. That’s what they did.”
After Heuer’s kickoff return got Lowell on the scoreboard, Michael Eriks — whose interception at the Red Devils’ 10yard line with 3.3 seconds left sealed the game — caught a 53-yard TD pass from Stojancevich with 9:29 left in the fourth quarter. Heuer’s 11-yard TD run with 5:41 left tied the score at 21-21.
Kankakee Valley nearly ended a losing streak to Lowell, dating to 2014, that has been extended to six games.
But after their game last week against Hobart was canceled because of a positive COVID-19 test, the Red Devils returned to retain the Milk Can in their rivalry with the Kougars.
“At halftime, our body language was crap,” Kilmer said. “Everything we’ve gone through the last eight days, they’re 16-, 17-, 18-year old kids. You just refocus them.
“They played hard and rose to the occasion. We got some calls, made some plays and stole a game.”