Kahoks fall to Brother Rice in playoffs

By Mark Jurgena

All good things must come to an end.

Unfortunately for the Collinsville football team, it came to an end on the South Side of Chicago Saturday night after a 44-15 loss to Chicago (Brother Rice) in the 2nd round of the IHSA Class 7A playoffs.

The Kahoks ended their season at 9-2, set a school record for wins in a season, and won a playoff game for the first time ever. Brother Rice moved to 7-4 and will play top-seeded Chicago (Mt. Carmel) Saturday.

“We faced a really, really good team in the 2nd round of the playoffs,” began Colton Rhodes. “They’ve been battle-tested before and I thought our guys were battle-tested before but they definitely made fewer mistakes than us and that’s why they came out on top.”

Collinsville made the five hour trek to the Windy City on Saturday and while the Chicago school jumped out to a 7-0 lead after one quarter and led 20-0 at the half Rhodes didn’t believe the trip had an effect on the outcome.

“I don’t want to think the trip affected us, I don’t think we came out too slow,” said Rhodes. “Obviously it was 20-0 at halftime so that wasn’t great. But offensively we did an ok job moving the ball at first and then we just had some turnovers and the weather was tricky for us offensively. But I don’t think the trip had an impact.”

Randall Nauden scored on a two-yard TD run on their opening drive and led 7-0 at the 7:44 mark of the 1st quarter.

Midway through the 2nd quarter Owen Lyons caught a 51-yard TD pass from quarterback Ryan Hartz but the extra point was missed and the Crusaders led 13-0 with 5:44 to play. 

A late three-yard TD run by Nauden and the PAT put Brother Rice up 20-0.

“Defensively we didn’t do too bad we struggled early on stopping the run,” said Rhodes. “Then you focus on stopping the run too much, then you have a coverage slip up and they get a big one that way too. They had some really large guys up front that gave us fits. We just didn’t play our normal game on either side of the ball this week.”

Additionally, the Crusaders blocked a pair of Collinsville punts during the contest.

In the second half, the Kahoks opened the second half with a 63 yard TD drive capped by a Kolby Anderson three-yard TD run. Andrew Chi kicked the extra point to make it a 20-7 game. 

From there, Brother Rice extended their lead to 44-7 before Collinsville got a late TD run by Ethan Bagwell. Jerry Richardson ran in the extra point to set the final score at 44-15.

“I thought we did a decent job of game planning,” said Rhodes. “We were one step away from finishing drives offensively and pretty much the same thing defensively. We were one step away from getting them to punt the ball or give it up on downs.

“But the kids played hard and we had a really successful season including winning our first playoff game in school history so you can’t be sad about that,” said Rhodes.

Kahok Stats

CHS was outgained by the Crusaders by a 428-229 margin despite the Kahoks running 18 more plays on offense.

Individually, Anderson led Collinsville with eight carries for 44 yards followed by Richardson’s 14 rushes for 31 yards. 

Bagwell was 10-for-23 passing for 108 yards and one INT.

Darren Pennell caught three passes for 79 yards while Richardson had five catches for 39 yards.

Defensively, Anderson had two solo tackles and eight assists while Isaiah Norton had three tackles and seven assists. Rollin Armes had three tackles and five assists.