Oak Forest arrived in Lemont on Friday in the midst of a dream season. Sure, the Bengals hadn’t faced the area’s most rugged schedule. But unbeaten is unbeaten. They knew knocking off the Indians, a major rival and a well-respected team around the state, would announce they had arrived.
Junior linebacker Frank Letizia and the Lemont defense did not let that happen. Not even close. The Indians shut out Oak Forest 35-0 to capture the South Suburban Blue conference title.
“(Oak Forest) has been posting stuff on Twitter this week, calling us out,” Letizia said. “So we did what we had to do to make the defense a powerhouse.”
Letizia was a constant thorn in the Bengals’ side, one of a pack of Lemont defenders that bottled up Oak Forest’s running game. The Bengals ran 19 plays that managed one yard or less.
“(Lemont assistant coach John Howe) is a genius,” Lemont senior Jeremy Fejedelem, an Air Force recruit, said. “We know their scheme. They really don’t change much. They do what they do well. But if you take away that dive back in the box you can bottle up their whole offense. We knew if we stopped that we would win.”
Fejedelem was one of the heroes on offense for the Indians (7-1, 5-0). He had a 19-yard touchdown run on Lemont’s first possession that helped set the tone for the game.
“I didn’t have to do much on that really,” Fejedelem said. “The wide receiver did an unbelievable job blocking for me. He just sealed the corner and I headed for the pylon.”
Fejedelem caught a 20-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Spencer Nagel in the second quarter to make it 21-0. Nagel was 8-for-14 for 140 yards and one interception. He also threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Steven Fleming.
“We noticed the Twitter stuff for sure,” Nagel said. “I don’t like that stuff, it doesn’t get in my head. I just ignored it and we were confident in ourselves. They hadn’t played a very tough team. We came out very strong in this game and kept driving the ball and scoring.”
Oak Forest (7-1, 4-1) just couldn’t make a dent in Lemont’s defense, despite excellent field position in the first half thanks to an interception from Nick Czeszewski and a fumble by the Indians.
The Bengals kept the ball on the ground for the most part, despite the ground game yielding few results. Jaron Johnson finished with 19 carries for 37 yards. Senior quarterback Zach Russell tried to find Czeszewski, the Bengals’ star player, down the sideline several times but connected just once for 22 yards.
Russell finished 3-for-13 for 36 yards.
“I sure did not expect this, I thought it would be a close game,” Lemont coach Bret Kooi said. “But our kids brought it. Our defense set the tone, we have a lot of speed. Our coaches coach the living tar out of the kids and give them a good idea of what to do.”