The OPRF football team did it. The Huskies won their first state playoff game since 1992 by slipping past West Suburban (Silver) Conference rival Hinsdale Central 28-24 at Dickinson Field in Hinsdale on Friday night, and luck had nothing to do with it.
With a minute left in a game fraught with penalties and turnovers on both sides of the ball, OPRF trailed 24-21. From near the 50-yard line, sophomore quarterback Lloyd Yates zipped a pass intended for Ryan Nelson that careened off the hands of a Hinsdale Central defender and landed in the arms of OPRF senior Tommy Odell, who raced down the right sideline for a touchdown that ignited the Huskie crowd and silenced those in the stands for the Red Devils (7-3).
“That’s what happens to good people,” exclaimed OPRF head coach John Hoerster about the victory-saving play by Odell, who spent the entirety of last season sidelined with a broken leg. “It’s not an accident; it’s not dumb luck that Tommy was there. That was Tommy being Tommy. That is what hard work and perseverance will do for you in the end.”
The Huskies advance to the second round of the Class 8A playoffs and will host fourth-seeded Waubonsie Valley on Saturday at 1 p.m. Waubonsie (9-1) defeated Proviso West 38-6 on Friday night.
Similar to their first meeting just three weeks ago with the Red Devils that resulted in a 42-41 overtime victory, the Huskies (7-3) had to scratch and claw their way back from a 17-point deficit. Jamal Baggett’s 65-yard kick-off return in the first quarter helped set up a Yates 5-yard touchdown keeper.
OPRF running back Jakari Cammon (192 yards, 23 attempts), whose fumble on the second play of the game led to Hinsdale Central’s first touchdown, scampered 63 yards into the end zone with 2:20 to go in the first half. The Huskies trailed 17-14 at halftime.
Yellow flags were flying most of the night. On one possession in the first half, the Red Devils committed four infractions in a row, and, in the second half, two OPRF touchdown runs were negated by penalties. Twenty-seven penalties (10 on OPRF, 17 on Hinsdale Central) were called in the game.
But with 3:57 left in the third quarter, Cammon slipped a defender and scored on a 48-yard rush to put OPRF up 21-17. The score remained that until the 2:58 mark of the final period when Hinsdale Central quarterback Brian Owens hit Ian Bunting for a 33-yard touchdown pass.
Following Odell’s heroics, OPRF junior defensive lineman Andre Lee sacked Owens for a 7-yard loss with 26 seconds left in the game.
“Why not us?” Hoerster asked his team after the momentous victory for the program. Later, when queried about how it felt to be the first person to coach an OPRF football team to a state playoff victory in nearly 20 years, he said he was just happy to be spending another week with this group of football players.
“I’m fired up that I get to hang with these guys another week. They are a great group, and they have worked hard for this, and they deserve it.”