Montini holds off Fenwick's late comeback

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.

The tweaks worked. Abrams completed his first six passes after halftime — two for touchdowns — 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.

The Broncos went ahead 14-10 on Payton Nelson's 31-yard pick-six with 10.9 seconds left before halftime.

Then Abrams and the Montini coaches went back to the drawing board.

"We saw on film — and we saw on the field, watching film on the sideline — that they were biting on all of our inside-zone, outside-zone plays," Abrams said. "So we know that if we fake inside zone and hit them up the sideline, which we did — we got that as a play we drew up in there.

"Same with the post route to Damacio [Ortegon]. ... That's something we're capable of doing."

Abrams' 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.

Though Williams got his passing yards, Montini mostly held Fenwick's 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.

"Santino is one of the toughest kids I've ever coached," said Mike Bukovsky, who coaches Tenuta in football and wrestling. "... He's a baller, you know? He just plays hard all the time. does his job, is a very physical kid. He's the heart and soul of our defense."

Williams had some chunk plays running the ball early before Montini's defense clamped down on that part of his game. Williams finished with 21 yards on 10 rushes.

"We know he likes to scramble a lot so we tried to keep that under control, contain him a little bit ... " Tenuta said.

Fenwick coach Matt Battaglia saw it as a game of missed opportunities.

"We came out, we played terrible football for three quarters," Battaglia said. "It 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.

"But like I told the kids, this loss is on me. I put them in bad positions."