By Mike Miazga
It’s a six-pack for the IC Catholic Prep football team. The Knights capped off a dominating
The Knights of Immaculate Conception Catholic Prep (ICCP) hoist the trophy over their heads after winning the Class 3A state-championship game at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, beating Willliamsville by a score of 48-17. ICCP finished the season 13-1, winning its sixth football state championship since 2002 and its fourth under Coach Bill Krefft.
season in apropos fashion with a 48-17 victory over Williamsville in the Class 3A state-championship game held at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. IC Catholic Prep finished the season 13-1 and won the program’s sixth football state championship since 2002 and fourth under 11th-year coach Bill Krefft. The Knights have now won state titles in 2002, 2008, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2022.
Since 2016, only one other high school football program in the state of Illinois (covering all 8 enrollment classifications) has equaled IC Catholic Prep’s four state titles — that being Lena-Winslow, a Class 1A school with an enrollment of 249 students 45 minutes northwest of Rockford that won state titles in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022. Only two other teams in the state have won three titles during that timeframe (Rochester and East St. Louis) and only 13 have won multiple state titles dating back to 2016.
In the win over Williamsville (12-2), the Knights had to come from behind to secure the state’s top prize. Williamsville kicked a 23-yard field goal with 2:22 left in the first quarter and then added a 16-yard passing touchdown with 10:15 to play in the second to take a 10-0 lead. And then the fun started.
IC Catholic Prep proceeded to rattle off 48 unanswered points in essentially two quarters of action as fans at Memorial Stadium watched the game deteriorate into a blowout. It was ICCP’s ninth instance of scoring 40 or more points this season and third in the playoffs. In those nine games, IC Catholic Prep’s average margin of victory was 44 points.
KJ Parker caught a 65-yard touchdown pass from Dennis Mandala to cut the lead to 10-7 with 9:29 to play before halftime. Denzell Gibson’s 51-yard touchdown run with 1:34 to play in the second quarter gave the Knights a 13-10 lead they would never relinquish. Gibson’s 34-yard run with 10:25 to play in the third put IC Catholic Prep up 20-10 and Eric Karner followed that up with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Mandala with 6:25 left in the third to put the score at 34-10.
JP Schmidt then caught a 74-yard pass from Mandala with 2:44 left in the third quarter to give the Knights a 41-10 lead. Mandala, an all-state selection, capped the scoring with a 56-yard rushing touchdown with 11:31 to play in the fourth quarter. He accounted for five of ICCP’s touchdowns on the day. The Knights put up 28 points alone in the third quarter.
After Williamsville scored on two of its first three possessions (the first ended on downs at the ICCP 34), the Bullets’ remaining possessions in the game included an interception, punt, punt, halftime, punt and three turnovers on downs before scoring its final points with 6:30 left in the contest.
By comparison, IC Catholic Prep’s first five possessions featured two punts, a touchdown, a punt and an interception. Following that the Knights scored touchdowns on its next six possessions before ending the game with the ball again in its hands at the Williamsville 33 in the midst of a 12-play, 62-yard fourth-quarter drive that accounted for 6:30 of ICCP’s total 20:32 time of possession — meaning the Knights had the ball for only 14:02 prior to that and caused all of the above 48-point chaos during that timeframe.
In those six straight touchdown scoring drives, the Knights needed only 22 plays that covered 346 yards and took only 11:50 in total time of possession. Gibson ran 10 times for 138 yards and two touchdowns, while Mandala ran six times for 78 yards and a score and Malik Gray ran nine times for 57 yards. The Knights ran for 296 yards and averaged 8.5 yards per carry.
Mandala finished the game 10 of 17 for 200 yards and four touchdowns. Parker caught four passes for 86 yards and two touchdowns, while Schmidt had two catches for 82 yards and a score. Karner had two catches for nine yards and a score and Joey Gliatta caught one pass for 12 yards.
Schmidt led the defense with 16 total tackles (11 solos) and had three tackles for loss. Jesse Smith had 15 tackles (11 solos). Kaleb Ellis had two pass breakups. The two teams combined for 878 yards of total offense with ICCP falling four yards short of an even 500. The Knights averaged 9.5 yards per play, while in stark contrast Williamsville, which ran 93 total offensive plays compared to ICCP’s 52, averaged only 4.1 yards per play. There were only three turnovers in the game (Williamsville threw 2 picks and ICCP threw 1).
Krefft, an IC graduate and former Knights player himself, is now 106-22 at the helm of the program. Taking away the COVID-19 pandemic year, his teams are 86-8 since 2015 with seven seasons in a row (again taking out the pandemic year) of 11 or more wins.
