Late TD Ends Evanston's Flag Season

Palatine Fremd receiver Asya Poyraz dropped an almost certain touchdown pass with a minute remaining in Friday’s Elite Eight flag football showdown with Evanston’s girls.

But the Viking freshman didn’t make the same mistake twice.

Poyraz broke the Wildkits’ hearts on the very next play, grabbing a 52-yard bomb from quarterback Lily Mayer with 45 seconds left on the clock to lift Fremd to a come-from-behind 20-13 victory in the first-ever Illinois High School Association state tournament held at Willowbrook High School.

How close were the Kits to winning a state championship? Fremd went on to capture the big trophy with triumphs over Bradley Bourbonnais (16-14) and previously unbeaten Rockford Guilford (24-12).

All Evanston could do was shrug their shoulders, wipe the tears away and say wait ‘til next year.

“To be honest, I still think we’re the better team,” said Evanston head coach Carlton Rosemond after his team’s Cinderella run ended with a final record of 17-9. “We just didn’t PLAY like the better team.

“I’m not trying to take anything away from Fremd, but we laid an egg and gave them the opportunity to win that game. I feel like the officials missed quite a few calls, three of them on that last drive. But we didn’t help ourselves, either. We let that girl (Poyraz) get behind us twice because we were playing the ball instead of the receiver, instead of keeping the ball in front of the defense.”

On the winning play, quarterback Mayer knocked ETHS pass rusher Camille Calixte’s hand away from the flag on her hip --- a clear violation of “flag guarding” that wasn’t called. That no-call came after a phantom pass interference call on fourth down had helped Fremd keep the drive alive, moving to the ETHS 44 with time winding down.

Mayer added the extra point run to give the Vikes a 7-point cushion, and Madeline Vonah intercepted ETHS quarterback Maggie Conforti’s last pass of the season on the 50-yard line.

The bitter ending spoiled one of Evanston’s best comeback efforts of the season when the stakes were highest. Down 12-0, the Kits showed their character and regrouped to take a 13-12 lead with approximately five minutes remaining on an 11-yard TD pass from Conforti to KyNia Hunt and a subsequent 1-point PAT completion to sophomore Katie Lindsay-Ryan.

Comebacks like that don’t happen often in the sport that features a running clock until the final minute of each half.

“I thought we were a little tense at the start,” acknowledged Rosemond after Fremd climaxed its opening drive with a 12-yard TD pass from Mayer to Poyraz. And when the Evanston coach opted not to punt on 4th down and Conforti’s pass fell incomplete, Fremd took advantage of the short field for a 31-yard scoring march that ended with a 9-yard TD toss from Mayer to Jordan Farrell.

“We got down 12-0 because we had five drops in the first half and we couldn’t continue our drives,” Rosemond said. “But we battled back and scored late in the half (on senior Hannah Honore’s 6-yard reception), and what I told them at halftime was that now we just needed some defensive stops and we’d be OK.

“We dominated Fremd for 18 and a half minutes in that second half. They couldn’t move the ball and offensively we got into a groove. There was nothing Fremd could do against us. It was a testament to how our girls believe in themselves --- and how much fight they have in them.”

Conforti (24-of-33 passing for 222 yards) drove the Wildkits 81 yards in just 7 plays, all of them completed passes. Biggest play in the drive was a catch-and-run by senior Rachel Durango-Cohen, who made one defender miss after the grab and raced 34 yards to the Fremd 23.

Four plays later, Conforti found Hunt for an 11-yard TD, then made a short pitch up the middle to Lindsay-Ryan for a 13-12 lead.

Lindsay-Ryan would have been the game’s heroine if that tally had stood as the final margin. The sophomore center was credited with a season-best 7 catches for 68 yards and the sophomore has clearly earned the trust of her quarterback. Both players will be back next season.

“Katie hasn’t had a lot of targets this year, she’s been more of a safety valve for Maggie,” Rosemond noted. “This is the best game she’s played all season long. We understood coming into the game that the middle would be wide open because Fremd uses two rushers. Katie watched a lot of film and was ready to be open in the middle, and as the game went on, Maggie knew she could count on her.

“She’s probably going to be the glue for this team going forward. She’s a phenomenal individual. She’s so selfless and she’s shown her teammates that if she gets the ball once in a game, or 15 times in a game, she’ll be happy about it and give 100 percent. She’s such a positive individual and she’s always celebrating her teammates’ success. Her personality really helped stabilize our (team) morale even in tough situations this year.”

The season ending defeat snapped Evanston’s 8-game winning string, but the program’s first year as a full-fledged varsity sport was clearly a success. The Wildkits will graduate six seniors (Honore, Durango-Cohen, Charlie Kingsbury, Maya Forman, Kennedy Murray, Nyel Rollins) and will have to replace two starters on each side of the ball.

“I’ll miss these seniors because they’re such a phenomenal group for the way they took the others under their wings like their little sisters,” praised Rosemond. “They recognized that as seniors they had to come into this year and be really strong for the younger girls. They established the foundation for Evanston Township girls flag football because they wanted to be the best version of themselves.

“We set a standard this year and reaching the Elite Eight is a high bar to reach. I hope the girls coming back will remain hungry, because the road ahead gets harder --- not easier --- and they’ll have to really work to keep developing their skills. If they want to get to State again, it’s all about how you position yourself in the best way possible to make another run.”