Cary-Grove uses toughness and passion to knock off East St. Louis for IHSA state title
CARY, Ill. (BVM) — East St. Louis was the cream of the crop when it came to high school football in Illinois this season. Led by Missouri commit Luther Burden III, the Flyers suffered two losses to out-of-state powers, but had not been threatened by any Illinois team. However, that all changed when they faced off against Cary-Grove in the IHSA Class 6A state championship game.
Although they were seen as an underdog going into the contest, it wasn’t a surprise that Cary-Grove would hang in. Led for the past decade by head coach Brad Seaburg, who has spent his entire 21-year coaching career with the program, Cary-Grove has turned into a perennial power.
The Trojans first made it to state back in 2004, later winning state titles in 2009 and most recently in 2018. The team has also had many other close calls over the years as they have continued to see playoff success.
“After 2004, we’ve made the playoffs every year, we’ve won at least one game every year,” Seaburg said. “The numbers are just remarkable. We’ve had an amazing run of great athletes. In the last four years, we’ve really kind of taken off.”
Last season was anything but normal for Cary-Grove among many others in Illinois, but going 4-0 in the spring campaign offered plenty of hope and optimism that the 2021 fall season would be special. With a strong senior class returning, the goal for the Trojans from day one was a state title.
“This senior group came into high school with a lot of talent,” Seaburg said. “When we played in the spring of 2021, we had a really good season and were really, really improving. We had enough juniors coming back that we knew we had a really good chance of winning a state championship. From a goal standpoint, from day one, our kids’ goal was to win a state championship.”
As Seaburg noted, there are a lot of things that have to go your way to win a state title. For Cary-Grove, things fell into place. The Trojans dominated the regular season, scoring over 40 points in all but one game. That one game was the team’s closest matchup of the year, a 36-22 win over Jacobs.
The Trojans rolled through the postseason as well, defeating Lake Forest on Nov. 20 to earn a trip back to the state championship game. However, awaiting them would be arguably the most dominant program in Illinois this season: East St. Louis.
Although the Flyers lost those two out-of-state games this season, they absolutely dominated within Illinois. In seven in-state games, East St. Louis allowed just five total touchdowns. Six of those seven wins included a mercy-rule running clock at the end of the game.
With an immense amount of talent on their side headlined by Burden III, Seaburg and his guys knew they were up for a tough challenge.
“The first thing you notice when you watch East St. Louis is how utterly talented they are, but also how hard the kids work and the attention to detail their players have,” Seaburg said. “It’s not even close, he [Burden] is the best high school football player I’ve ever seen. He can just do so many things.
“We knew that it was an extremely difficult task, but it wasn’t a task where we felt like we didn’t have a chance. We always felt like we had a chance and we’re going to do this … that says a lot about our kids. The fact that our kids were so confident gave us coaches confidence too.”
That confidence showed on the field early and often. Although Burden III scored a 53-yard touchdown on the second play of the game, the Trojans were not fazed. A 32-yard touchdown by senior quarterback Jameson Sheehan tied the game, and although the Flyers would answer, Cary-Grove continued to fight back, eventually taking a 23-20 lead late in the half on another Sheehan touchdown.
Using their signature triple-option offense against the Flyers, the Trojans gave East St. Louis as great of a fight as anyone had all season.
“The offense was really moving in that first half,” Seaburg noted. “We wanted to go right at them, we felt like we had an advantage up front.”
After Sheehan’s touchdown came one of the biggest moments of the game, as Cary-Grove recovered an onside kick, leading to another Sheehan touchdown. At the half, the Trojans led 30-20.
“When you have good players who execute, decisions that are called ‘gutsy’ … it makes you look like you know what you’re doing,” Seaburg said. “We went into halftime with all kinds of momentum, winning the emotional roller coaster and our kids are in the locker room just ready to go.”
Cary-Grove came out strong again in the second half, but as expected, they got East St. Louis’ best fight. Towards the end of the third quarter, Burden III scored another touchdown, allowing the Flyers to cut the deficit to 30-28.
As they had all day, the Trojans again answered with a nine-yard touchdown run by fullback Nick Hissong. The drive also featured the team’s only completed pass of the game, a 23-yard gain on a fourth-and-17 play.
However, the back-and-forth continued, as Burden would take the ensuing kickoff 80 yards to the house. A two-point conversion cut the deficit to just one at 37-36.
Luther Burden 80-yard kickoff return. The Trojans had been able to keep the ball away from him before that. Cary-Grove 37, East St. Louis 36, 11:37 4th. pic.twitter.com/Q9J3S4Yg26
— Alex Kantecki (@akantecki) November 27, 2021
Cary-Grove put together a clock-killing 14-play drive, but after a fourth-down fumble, East St. Louis got the ball back with three minutes left and a chance to go for the win.
“We really felt like if we would’ve scored there, it would’ve been big for us because we would’ve been up a touchdown,” Seaburg said. “They got the ball back, and we were just hoping and praying we could do something to stop them.”
Committing several penalties on the drive, the Flyers still had the ball to midfield. But that’s when senior tight end Noah Riley became a hero.
Riley was subbed in for one play to cover Burden, and he ended up intercepting a Robert Battle pass, preserving the upset for the Trojans.
Instant classic in DeKalb.
Splitt onside kick. Sheehan to Riley on 4th-and-long. Hissong tough tun after tough run. Defense huge stop at the end. So many contributions along the way for a total team effort. What a ride to finish 14-0 on the season.
STATE CHAMPS!
— Trojan Football (@CGTrojanFB) November 27, 2021
“Noah made a great play,” Seaburg said. “When he got that ball, every emotion you could ever imagine went through our staff, went through our kids, went through our community. It was a moment that we’ll never forget, and we’re just thankful that we were on the winning side of it.”
The win not only brought home another state title, but also capped a perfect 14-0 season and an impressive 41-3 run by the Trojans’ senior class. Whether it was the heroic play from Riley or the strong effort throughout from Sheehan, many players had a large impact on the win.
Two of those players even played through pain, laying it all on the line for their team. Hissong ended up tearing his ACL late in the game after rushing for 224 yards and two touchdowns. Meanwhile, linebacker and running back Wade Abrams — who also made a big impact on the defensive side — did not even see a carry and was used as a blocker throughout the game. But after suffering an injury in practice earlier in the year that caused hematoma in his thigh and made it swell up to nearly twice it’s normal size, his presence back on the field was massive. The heart and soul of each of those guys further speaks to the culture of the program.
“There’s a lot of kids that contributed and had great games,” Seaburg said. “Everyone is going to remember Nick’s game because he played phenomenal and he played his heart out. He was just a warrior, he was insistent about coming out on the field for the last play. It just says a lot about Nick and also what the team meant to him.
“One guy who hasn’t gotten a lot of mention but deserves it is Wade Abrams. Wade started both ways. He had a devastating leg injury in Week 9 that sent him to the hospital and put his season in jeopardy. He finally got into playing shape in our Lake Forest game and him playing in that game was a miracle. He came back and just showed the grit of a Cary-Grove kid. We do not win the game without Wade Abrams.”
It may be the end of the road for Cary-Grove’s senior class, but the future of the program remains bright. More state championships may come in the future, but this is one that will be remembered forever, by the players, coaches and community alike.
“We’ve won it three times, and every time it’s been exhilarating and amazing,” Seaburg concluded. “You think the next time we do it, it just can’t top it, but we continue to outdo ourselves. The sheer excitement that the game provides for our kids and our parents and our coaches, it creates a level of pride in the school. There isn’t a teacher or kid that doesn’t have a little bit more pride in the school after what happened … That’s what makes high school sports unlike anything else.”
