Sean Rice could have easily called it a high school career after suffering a freak injury earlier this season.
The St. Laurence senior is graduating in December and heading off to play Big Ten football at Illinois.
He suffered a broken bone in his foot and a high ankle sprain while running through a banner before a game, part of an unfortunate trend for the Vikings.
“At one point, we had 18 kids out with injuries,” St. Laurence coach Pat Swanson said.
But the Vikings’ health is trending in the right direction as they take advantage of the newly expanded IHSA playoff format. St. Laurence is 3-6 after beating DePaul Prep 10-7 on Oct. 16 in Rice’s return to action.
That wouldn’t have been good enough to earn an IHSA bid before, but it is now. The Vikings are the 39th seed in the 48-team Class 7A bracket announced on Oct. 17, and will play at 26th seed Belleville East (5-4) in the opening round this weekend.
Rice, a 6-2, 210-pounder and a three-star prospect, plans to be on the field.
“He looked us in the eye and said, ‘I’m not going to miss my final high school football game,'” Swanson said.
The Vikings reached the Class 6A semifinals last season, but started 0-4 this fall.
“Outside of one game (a 44-7 loss to Prospect) we were pretty much in every single game we played in,” Swanson said. “Some things didn’t bounce our way.
“We fought really, really, really hard. I don’t think there was a lot of quit (in the players). When you start the way we did in the season, it’s easy to pack it in.”
St. Laurence is one of several local teams which qualified this year with four or fewer wins. Only a handful of teams had ever done that in the past, though one — Nazareth in 2023 — squeaked in under the old format at 4-5 and actually won a state title.
This season, the qualifiers also include Andrew (2-7) and Reavis (4-5) in 7A and Nazareth (4-5) in 6A.
The other new wrinkle this year is the addition of byes for the top 16 teams in each class. Local teams in that category are Mount Carmel (7-2) and Sandburg (7-2) in 8A; Brother Rice (7-2), Richards (7-2) and St. Rita (6-3) in 7A; Kennedy (8-1), Riverside-Brookfield (8-1), Oak Lawn (7-2) and Goode (6-2) in 6A; and Evergreen Park (7-2) in 4A.
Rounding out the list of area qualifiers are: Lyons (6-3), Marist (5-4) and Curie (5-4) in 8A; Shepard (5-4) in 6A; and Chicago Christian (5-4) in 3A.