Botched returns key Rams' blowout
South Side clinches Big 7 title for first time since 1999
Union football had to feel pretty good about how its critical game against South Side was about to begin.
Not only did the Scotties have a raucous crowd on hand cheering them on, but they were also about to receive the opening kickoff to put their high-powered offense on the field to open things up.
But you could have heard a pin drop on the home side of the field after what ensued.
South Side recovered pooches on the first two kickoffs of the night and turned both into touchdowns in the first 3:46. Propelled by the quick 14-point lead, the Class 1A No. 2 Rams (9-0, 5-0) rolled to a 49-15 victory Friday against No. 5 Union (7-2, 4-1) at Socs Roussos Stadium.
“You can’t write a book better than that,” South Side coach Luke Travelpiece said. “For us to end up with the ball twice, it just flipped the script.”
South Side running back Ryan Navarra finished with 15 carries for 111 yards and five touchdowns as the Rams clinched the Big 7 Conference title for the first time since 1999.
“It feels amazing because we’ve been working for this the whole summer and, the whole year, we’ve been eying this,” Navarra said. “It just feels amazing.”
South Side can only hope it can open all of its games the way it did against Union.
On the opening kickoff, South Side avoided kicking it deep and instead pooched it down the left sideline. The Union upman slipped on the wet grass and went down, which allowed the coverage team to pounce on what amounted to a long onside kick recovered at the Scotties’ 28.
It only took three plays before Navarra scored the first of his two first-half touchdowns on an 11-yard scamper, and the Rams had a 7-0 lead just 2:11 into the game.
Unbelievably, the second kickoff was almost a carbon copy of the first. Although the short kickoff didn’t go quite as far, the end result was the same as South Side won the ball in a scrum and took over at the Union 33.
Like the first drive, it only took three plays before quarterback Brody Almashy took it in himself from 20 yards out for the first of his two first-half touchdowns. The Rams were up 14-0 with 8:14 left in the first quarter, and the Scotties offense hadn’t even run a play.
“South Side’s a very good football team, and they flat beat us,” Union coach Kim Niedbala said. “But you can’t fumble two kickoffs and not even have your offense on the field and be down 14-0 and give them short fields like that. It does change the complexion.”
Stuck in a 14-point hole before the offense even took the field, Union faced an uphill battle throughout the game. The closest the Scotties got was on their first drive when quarterback Braylon Thomas hit Grayson Blakley on a 14-yard touchdown pass with 5:15 to close the gap to 14-7..
“We were able to put one on the board and make it 14-7 and things just went back and forth,” Niedbala said. “They scored, and there’s not much you can do.”
That score was the only one Union could muster in the first half as South Side limited Thomas to 12 of 22 for 189 yards in the air and only 18 yards on 11 trips on the ground.
“Nick McKinley did a great job this week trying to get us ready for what Braylon can do, and you can’t emulate him as a runner,” Travelpiece said. “But (with the lead) it gave us the opportunity for them to have to press a little more, maybe get more chunk plays, and our defense was just confident in what they were doing.”
South Side took the ensuing kickoff and made it four scores in the first four drives when Almashy scored from 3 yards out on a quarterback sneak to give South Side a 217 lead with 41 seconds left in the first quarter.
That was when Union blinked.
After methodically driving the ball through the teeth of the Rams defense, Thomas threw late over the middle and was picked off by Almashy. Although his interception return for a touchdown was called back on a penalty, it only delayed the inevitable. South Side reeled off a 9-play, 85-yard drive that Navarra capped with a 3-yard run, and the Rams took an insurmountable 28-7 lead into the intermission.