Dominant defensive performance pushes Ramblers’ win streak to four

The Loyola Academy Ramblers on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 12, reached a milestone on the road to what they hope will be their third straight IHSA Class 8A championship when they overwhelmed Providence Catholic 42-6 to become playoff-eligible.

Playing their only matinee game of the regular season on Hoerster Field on Senior Day, the Ramblers extended their winning streak to four games and improved their record to 5-2.

To become playoff eligible a team must win at least five of its nine regular-season contests.

The Ramblers got off to an out-of-character 1-2 start but now they have momentum, thanks in large part to a vast improvement on the defensive side of the football. They’ve given up only one touchdown in each of their last three games and yielded a total of 19 points after yielding 97 in their first four games.

“Today we wanted to make a statement,” said Charlie Daly, the senior linebacker who has had the biggest impact. “St. Francis beat us (35-21 in Week 3 of the season) and Providence beat St. Francis (27-25 in Week 5).”

Daly’s translation of the statement made by the comparative scores: “Now, we’re on a roll and we’re going to keep rolling.”

“Defensively, that was our most complete game of the year,” coach Beau Desherow pointed out. “Pete Devine, our defensive coordinator, and the other defensive coaches had a very good game plan. The kids executed well against a big physical offensive line.”

Providence quarterback AJ Rayford was under unrelenting pressure for the entire game. He was sacked four times — by Tommy Ghislandi and Charlie Prior in the first quarter and by Daly and Max Mendoza in the third quarter.

In complete contrast, Loyola’s star quarterback Ryan Fitzgerald was almost untouchable.

“Our offensive line again did a great job of protecting Ryan,” Desherow said. “It took us a little bit of time to get going but once we got going there was no looking back.”

Fitzgerald sustained a hamstring injury in the Sept. 9 victory at Glenbard West. It caused him to miss one game and in the last two games he has been one-dimensional, foregoing his inclination to intermittently run for big gains, leaving the rushing to Drew MacPherson and Luke Foster and focusing on his passing.

“I’m rehabbing while I’m playing,” said Fitzgerald, who threw three touchdown passes in the first half — 6 yards to MacPherson in the first quarter and 14 yards to Will Carlson and 37 yards to Brendan Loftus in the second quarter — to lead Loyola to a 21-0 lead at the half.

“We had a bunch of mental mistakes at the start,” Fitzgerald said. “We were prepared and once we got focused and cleaned up our mental lapses we got rolling and kept rolling.”

After being unable to capitalize when they started from the Celtics’ 30-yard line on their first possession, the Ramblers reached the end zone on a 47-yard drive in their second possession. MacPherson accounted for 35 of the yards on three receptions and a 4-yard run.

On the 58-yard drive for the second touchdown, Fitzgerald threw two passes, a 23-yarder to Loftus and the pass to Carlson, who made an outstanding catch in the right corner of the end zone. The rest of the yardage came on runs by MacPherson and Foster.

The third scoring drive covered 59 yards. Before passing to the wide open Loftus for the TD, Fitzgerald connected with Carlson for gains of 13 and 11 yards and, in his only run of the afternoon, carried for five yards in a third-and-3 situation to put the ball at the Celtics’ 48.

Providence kicked off to start the second half and Donovan Robinson ran the kickoff 87 yards down the left sideline for the Ramblers’ fourth touchdown (an opposite-side replica of his 82-yard scoring run down the right sideline the previous weekend at St. Ignatius).

On Loyola’s possession following the fourth TD, sophomore Dom Maloney came in at quarterback in relief of Fitzgerald, who’d completed 9 of 15 passes for 135 yards.

Two possessions later, two rushes by Foster advanced the ball 11 yards and set the stage for Maloney’s 40-yard pass to Carlson for the wide receiver’s second touchdown and the Ramblers’ fifth of the lopsided contest with 6:29 left in the third quarter. Zack Zeman followed with his fifth extra-point kick.

“On the second one I was following my route and finding a spot where our quarterback could get me the ball,” Carlson said. “On the first one Fitz put the ball up there and I had to get it.”

In the closing minutes of the quarter, Carlson made another big play — this one on defense — when he picked off a pass by Rayford and ran it back 36 yards to the Providence 41.

Junior running back Drew Switzenberg then made his debut. He gained 4 yards in two carries before bursting through the line for a 37-yard run that gave the Ramblers their final touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter. Tommy Miller came in to kick the extra point, giving Loyola a 42-0 lead and activating the running clock that takes effect when a team leads by 42 or more points in the second half.

Desherow was delighted with Switzenberg’s auspicious debut but wasn’t surprised.

“He’s a lacrosse player and wasn’t out (for practice) during the summer,” the Loyola coach said. “He came out at the beginning of the season. We were working him as a defensive back and then, because of injuries, we decided to try him on offense. When we did he made a couple of (big) plays we realized: ‘Holy cow! This kid is a player!’”

Following Switzenberg’s touchdown trip, Jayleen McMiller ran the kickoff back 88 yards for the Celtics’ only touchdown but by then their hopes of winning were long gone and their record dropped to 3-4.

The Ramblers’ reserves played the entire fourth quarter.

“It was Senior Day and we were able to get everybody in,” Desherow pointed out.

The Ramblers’ last two regular season games will be on the road: Friday night, Oct. 19, in Mundelein against Carmel Catholic and the following Friday night on Chicago’s South Side against their arch-rival Mount Carmel, the defending Class 7A state champion.

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