Five touchdowns. Five different scorers. One happy coach.
In visiting Sandburg’s 35-19 victory over Bradley-Bourbonnais on Oct. 16, the Eagles displayed the offensive balance that coach Sheamus Murphy was hoping to see.
“When you get five different guys in the end zone, that’s always good,” Murphy said. “You know we have a lot of different weapons and we can attack in a lot of different ways. It was good to see that variety in the passing game and in the running game.”
With starting quarterback Sean Ruisz having earned a night off, backup Max Fahey stepped in and performed very well for Sandburg (7-2, 4-2 SouthWest Suburban). The 6-2, 190-pound junior was 14 of 18 passing for 233 yards and two touchdowns.
“Sean is banged up a little bit and we just wanted to give him a little rest here,” Murphy said. “With the win (Friday) night and clinching a bye (in the state playoffs), now he has a couple of weeks to get fully healthy.
“We felt good about that plan and we’ve seen Max get some opportunities this year. Max would start at nine out of 10 high schools, so he’s a very capable player. So, we felt good about it. Max did a great job of managing the game for us and he took care of the football.
“His stat line of 14 for 18 is exactly what you want. He did a good job of distributing to a variety of guys and he executed the game plan well.”
Sandburg, which outgained the Boilermakers 438 yards to 275, led 21-0 at halftime and 35-6 after three quarters. The Eagles opened the scoring in the first quarter as Fahey found Lucas Matykiewicz (three catches, 90 yards) on a 26-yard TD toss and Quinn Durkin (three catches, 71 yards) on a 9-yard pass.
In the second quarter, Vinny Annel scored on a 2-yard run. Third-quarter touchdowns from Aiden Evans (15-yard run) and Nasir Dixon (79-yard run) increased the lead to 35-6. Dixon finished with nine carries for 109 yards.
“We’ve played good football,” Murphy said. “I kid and I joke though that we haven’t had a full deck of cards yet all season. We’ve been injured and banged up, so it’s looking like round one (of the state playoffs), we’ll finally be at full strength.”
Sandburg is the ninth seed in Class 8A and will play either Barrington (5-4) or Waubonsie Valley (3-6) in the first round.