While the crowd was watching a lengthy fireworks show at halftime Friday night, Israel Abrams and the Montini offense was making some adjustments after scoring just once in the first two quarters.<\/p>\n
The tweaks worked. Abrams completed his first six passes after halftime \u2014 two for touchdowns \u2014 and the No. 20 Broncos held off a furious rally by No. 13 Fenwick to win 31-29 in Lombard. Down 18 late in the third quarter, Jamen Williams and the Friars scored three times and cut the deficit to two points as time ran out in the fourth quarter. But a two-point conversion pass fell incomplete and Montini (4-0, 1-0 CCL\/ESCC White) held on.<\/p>\n
The Broncos went ahead 14-10 on Payton Nelson\u2019s 31-yard pick-six with 10.9 seconds left before halftime. Then Abrams and the Montini coaches went back to the drawing board. \u201cWe saw on film \u2014 and we saw on the field, watching film on the sideline \u2014 that they were biting on all of our inside-zone, outside-zone plays,\u201d Abrams said. \u201cSo we know that if we fake inside zone and hit them up the sideline, which we did \u2014 we got that as a play we drew up in there. Same with the post route to Damacio [Ortegon]. … That\u2019s something we\u2019re capable of doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abrams\u2019 57-yard touchdown pass to Ortegon and a 28-yard scoring pass to Nico Castaldo on consecutive possessions made it 28-10 with 46 seconds left in the third quarter. Abrams finished 15 of 19 for 163 yards and two TDs with no interceptions. The Broncos wound up needing all those points, as well as a 41-yard field goal by Johnny Louise, to hold off Williams and the Friars (3-1, 0-1). Williams completed 22 of 38 passes for 329 yards and three touchdowns with one interception. His TDs went for 62 yards to Raphiel Stewart, 29 yards to Will Tomczak and five yards to Mike Murphy on the last play of the game.<\/p>\n
Though Williams got his passing yards, Montini mostly held Fenwick\u2019s ground game in check thanks to a big night from senior linebacker Santino Tenuta, a three-year starter who had multiple sacks and tackles for loss. <\/p>\n
Fenwick\u2019s James Williams (12) passes the ball to attempt a two-point conversion in the final moments against Montini.
\nKirsten Stickney\/For the Sun-Times<\/p>\n
\u201cSantino is one of the toughest kids I\u2019ve ever coached,\u201d said Mike Bukovsky, who coaches Tenuta in football and wrestling. "… He\u2019s a baller, you know? He just plays hard all the time. does his job, is a very physical kid. He\u2019s the heart and soul of our defense.\u201d Williams had some chunk plays running the ball early before Montini\u2019s defense clamped down on that part of his game. Williams finished with 21 yards on 10 rushes. \u201cWe know he likes to scramble a lot so we tried to keep that under control, contain him a little bit … " Tenuta said.<\/p>\n
Fenwick coach Matt Battaglia saw it as a game of missed opportunities. \u201cWe came out, we played terrible football for three quarters,\u201d Battaglia said. \u201cIt took us being down three scores to finally stop pressing and just play Fenwick football like we know how. I wish we did that sooner. \u201cBut like I told the kids, this loss is on me. I put them in bad positions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game between Montini and Fenwick was a closely contested one, with Montini ultimately emerging victorious. The team’s adjustments at halftime and strong defensive performance were key factors in their win. The game also highlighted the importance of player performance and coaching decisions in determining the outcome of a game.<\/p>\n
Q: Who won the game between Montini and Fenwick?
\nA: Montini won the game 31-29.
\nQ: What was the score at halftime?
\nA: The score at halftime was not specified in the article.
\nQ: Who was the standout player for Montini?
\nA: Santino Tenuta, a senior linebacker, had a big night with multiple sacks and tackles for loss.
\nQ: What was the final score of the game?
\nA: The final score of the game was Montini 31, Fenwick 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to the Game While the crowd was watching a lengthy fireworks show at halftime Friday night, Israel Abrams and the Montini offense was making some adjustments after scoring just once in the first two quarters. Adjustments and Tweaks The tweaks worked. Abrams completed his first six passes after halftime \u2014 two for touchdowns \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/5dd968f\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4000x2283+0+0\/resize\/1461x834!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F75%2Fee%2F64961ef04925afa0e886df663322%2Fmc-cst-092025-008.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28725,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28722\/revisions\/28725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}