Belleville East football Lancers make eight hours in a bus worth the trip

An eight-hour round-trip trek Saturday proved worth the while for Belleville East’s football team.

The 17th-seeded Lancers ventured north to face 16th-seeded West Aurora and used a high-powered offense to post a decisive 48-34 victory in the first round of the IHSA Class 8A postseason.

East, which has won three straight games and four of its past five, improved to 8-2.

“This one will definitely be a fun bus ride home,” Lancers coach Michael Harrison said. His team has reached the postseason four straight seasons. “We’re happy to come out on top on one of these trips.”

Added junior James Johnson, who led East in receptions and yards Saturday night and returned an interception for a touchdown: “It was great. This meant a lot to us. We worked really hard this season. We really executed what we practiced this week, and hopefully that translates to next week and the week after that.”

East will face top-seeded Chicago Mount Carmel (10-0) in Round 2. The date, time and location will be announced Monday.

Mount Carmel, which owns 16 state championships, defeated defending state champion Wilmette Loyola Academy in the opening round Saturday. East lost to the Ramblers in the first round of the 2024 postseason.

“Mount Carmel obviously has had a good year, and they are a traditionally great football program,” Harrison said. “We know the name, and we know who they are and their history. I know they just beat Loyola back-to-back weeks. We ran into Loyola last year in the playoffs, so we have a common opponent. We’ll get the film, take a look at Mount Carmel and come up with a game plan to put our kids in a position to be successful.”

As Harrison noted, East has grown accustomed to playoff trips north. In 2022, East lost in the first round at South Elgin, 28-20; in 2023, the Lancers defeated East Aurora at home, 70-0, before losing at Maine South, 33-21; and in 2024, East lost to Loyola Academy.

Before the season, Harrison anticipated another playoff appearance and planned accordingly. He scheduled a game at Pekin, which is approximately two and a half hours from Belleville.

“We try to have a trip early in the year just to get that experience of a long bus ride; this year, we went to Pekin,” Harrison said. “This trip is not foreign to them. They’ve done it before and knew what to expect and handled it well. It’s kind of become the standard here that we know we’re going to make the playoffs and will have to get on a bus and go four hours to beat somebody. So, we got that box checked.”

Harrison said East treated this as a business trip. Having 26 seniors who have done this multiple times certainly helped, he said.

“A lot of times, high school kids get on a bus to go out of town and treat it like a vacation,” he said. “Our guys didn’t. They kept their business suits on, focused on the job at hand and got off the bus ready to go. We talk about it … we set a goal at the beginning of the year for making the playoffs, and our kids know that means we’ll have to go up four hours to play somebody.”

East dominated West Aurora (7-3). Harrison’s team led 13-7 early, then 28-17 at halftime, built the lead to 35-20 in the third quarter and rolled from there.

“Offensively, we moved the ball pretty much all night,” he said. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit to start the game. Pretty much after the first drive, we moved the ball on those guys and were able to score all night. They’ve got some really good playmakers on their team, but our defense gave the offense good field position, and we put those in for scores that helped us get a lead going into halftime and put us in a good position.”

Johnson, CJ Willis (one touchdown reception) and seniors Jaedon Beamon (one touchdown) and Josh Ware (two touchdowns) helped key the offensive explosion. East’s offensive line also earned high marks.

“Our big four guys that led us all season came through again tonight,” Harrison said. “James Johnson kind of dominated the game on offense and defense. Both running backs ran the ball well tonight, and, honestly, that was a testament to our offensive line. The offensive line did an outstanding job controlling the line of scrimmage and opening up holes.”

Johnson backed Harrison’s assessment.

“That is another thing that we drew up at practice … our line had a very big role this week,” he said. “They did a great job blocking to open things up for our running backs. Our receivers also really stepped up and have had really good games lately. When the line is blocking like that, it’s easy for us to score.”

Johnson is now ready for Round 2.

“We’re happy we won today,” he said. “But we’re on to next week. We know they’re a good team. The most important thing is to make sure we don’t beat ourselves. We have no chance to beat the other team if we beat ourselves. The game will take care of itself if we focus on our jobs and do our jobs.”

Other metro-east playoff games

Here’s rundown of Saturday’s other playoff action involving local teams:

CLASS 1A

• No. 3 seed Dupo rolled past No. 14 seed Salt Fork, 28-7, at home. The Tigers improved to 9-1 and will face No. 11 seed Carrollton (7-3) in round two. Salt Fork finished 5-5.

CLASS 2A

• No. 13 seed Nashville dropped a close 42-39 road decision to No. 4 seed Flora. The Hornets finished the season 5-5. Flora (9-1) now faces No. 5 seed Pana (9-1) in round two.

CLASS 3A

• No. 11 seed Roxana (6-3) rolled past No. 6 seed West Frankfort, 55-18. The visiting Shells improved to 7-3 and will face No. 14 seed St. Joseph-Ogden (5-4) in the second round. West Frankfort finished 6-4.

CLASS 4A

• No. 4 seed Breese Central rolled past No. 13 seed Columbia, 48-15. The Cougars improved to 9-1 and will face No. 5 seed Freeburg (9-1) in round two. The teams met Sept. 19 with the Cougars blanking the Midgets, 49-0. The Eagles finished 6-4.
• No. 5 seed Freeburg outlasted No. 4 seed Highland, 46-36, at home. The Midgets now will face Breese Central in round two. The Bulldogs finished the season 6-4.
• No. 9 seed Cahokia rolled past No. 8 seed Centralia, 44-22. The visiting Comanches improved to 8-2 and will face No. 16 seed Jacksonville (6-4) in the second round. The Orphans finished 7-3.
• No. 15 seed Alton Marquette lost to No. 2 seed Carterville, 42-14. The Explorers finished the season 5-5. The Lions improved to 10-0 and will face No. 10 seed Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin (7-4) in the second round.