Bennett leads East St. Louis to sixth straight IHSA state football semifinal
In the second quarter of Saturday’s Class 6A quarterfinal playoff contest at Glenwood High School, the East St. Louis Flyers were in a most unfamiliar situation: a competitive football game.
The score was tied, the Chatham Glenwood Titans had just scored the first points by any Flyers opponent in the postseason and the red-and-white-clad partisans were making a ruckus in the stands.
Two plays later, the home crowd was quiet again and that’s the way it stayed most of the rest of the afternoon as the nationally-ranked, powerhouse Flyers went on to a 58-14 victory to advance to the IHSA Class 6A State Semifinals next week at home against Oak Lawn.
Christopher Bennett Jr.’s 27-yard scoring run, one play after teammate Larevious Woods ran for 35 yards, capped a two-play, 62-yard drive that broke a 7-7 tie and the Flyers (11-1) never trailed again. While the Titans made something of a rally to get to within 12 points at 26-14 in the third quarter, it was all East St. Louis after that.
Bennett Jr. scored four touchdowns, including an 80-yard run on the first play from scrimmage following a Herchel Walker two-yard scoring run for Glenwood that made it 26-14 early in the third quarter. Taking a handoff from quarterback Kendrick Lyons, he cut past a couple of Titans defensive backs and ran it down the right sideline to hush the crowd again at 32-14.
Bennett Jr. also scored on an 18-yard run soon after Flyers senior cornerback Charles Bass made one of the game’s biggest plays, stuffing a Glenwood runner in the backfield on fourth-and-one from midfield with East St. Louis up 14-7.
“The defense bailed us out and I told them ‘I got you. Don’t worry that they scored, I got it.’ And we got back (in control of) the game for good,” said Bennett Jr., who is committed to play next year at Lindenwood University.
While Bennett Jr. wore a smile after the game, he said he won’t be truly happy until the Flyers can get two more victories and a championship trophy.
“Staying on track, getting to state and actually winning it this year, that’s the main goal,” he said. “We’ve been to state so many years and come up short. So, finish the job, that’s all we want.”
The Flyers’ defense had only given up three first downs in their first two postseason games, and zero points. But, at least for a little while, they were pushed some by Titans junior QB Colten Knoedler, who threw a second-quarter 15-yard TD pass to tight end Jonathan Helm and completed some passes as part of a third-quarter scoring drive that made it 26-14.
Flyers coach Darren Sunkett, an IHSA Hall of Famer already and whose teams have been in the state semifinals every year since 2018, liked the way his players handled what was – for them this year anyway – a touch of difficulty in a game.
“We missed two fourth-down opportunities in the first half, just bad reads on our part, and we just told our defense they needed to stiffen up a bit more. A lot of positive things started to happen after that,” Sunkett said. “We knew (Glenwood) had a lot of adrenaline going, and it just had to wear off. It’s like getting a shot; once that shot wears off, you become who you are. It dropped, their adrenaline wore off and we kept the pedal to the medal.”
Flyers sophomore Phillip White had a big day defensively, with two interceptions, and Lyons completed 12-of-16 passes.
Over on the Glenwood (9-3) sideline, coach David Hay expressed pride in the battle his team waged.
“That was a game there in the third quarter. It just got a little weird there at the end, but our kids were physical on both sides of the football and played for four quarters,” Hay said.
This story was originally published November 16, 2024 at 7:02 PM.