One score was all it took to end Evanston’s flag football season Tuesday night.
Top-seeded Maine South drove for a score in the third quarter, then stopped the final two Evanston drives at midfield and advanced to the Elite Eight with a 7-0 triumph over the Wildkits in the championship game of the Lane Tech Sectional.
The Hawks, now 24-3 overall, denied the Kits a chance to reach the Elite Eight for the second year in a row. Instead, Maine South punched its own ticket and will meet fellow Central Suburban League South division rival Glenbrook South in the quarterfinals of the Illinois High School Association state tournament on Friday at Willowbrook.
The other quarterfinal games will pit Chicago Perspectives against Edwardsville, host Willowbrook against Chicago Kenwood, and Whitney Young against Antioch. Willowbrook and Whitney Young also reached the Elite Eight in 2024.
Evanston’s fourth quarter rallies fizzled, first at the Maine South 42 and then at the South 46, and that sent the losers to the sidelines with a final record of 17-4. That win total tied the school record set by the 2024 squad but left an empty feeling for a team that wanted to take one step further.
It marked only the second time this season that one of the most dangerous offenses in the state suffered a shutout. But playmakers Maggie Conforti, KyNia Hunt and Brielle Rosemond couldn’t find the end zone in losing to Maine South for the second time this season.
Quarterback Conforti, the only senior starter, completed 20-of-32 passing attempts for 195 yards, and at least half of those incompletions could have been considered drops.
“We had our opportunities to score,” said second-year ETHS head coach Carlton Rosemond. “We drove down there multiple times and couldn’t punch it in. Give Maine South credit — they got one more play than we did, and now they get to go to State.
“We had some big plays in the first half, and we just ran out of time. I felt like they played their hardest and gave it their best all season, and that’s all I can ask.”
Actually, that was almost all the coach could ask. Rosemond felt that the officials allowed too much contact Tuesday and allowed South pass rusher extraordinaire Reese Froeschle to use her hands too often on Evanston’s screeners in what’s supposed to be a non-contact sport. The ETHS mentor spent 10 minutes at halftime (along with screener/safety Ella Martin) trying to come to a meeting of the minds with the referee as to just what would be allowed.
Eventually, they agreed to disagree.
“I don’t want to blame the refs for this loss,” Rosemond said. “Maine South’s pass rushers caused some havoc. But [if] the rusher is able to put hands on our screeners every time, then that’s a problem because it’s supposed to be a non-contact sport. Our screeners didn’t know what to do, what would be allowed. It’s a problem because it put our quarterback at risk, and she didn’t have as much time back there as she should have. I know Maggie felt pressure on that [first] fourth down play. She had to run to her left [Conforti is right-handed], and that made it a very hard play. I don’t fault Maggie because it was all or nothing at that point.”
Those pivotal moments came after the Wildkit defense stiffened inside the red zone for the second time in the game and wouldn’t let the Hawks in. Hunt broke up a fourth down pass on the second play of the fourth quarter, after South had seized the lead on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Aribella Spandiary to Laila Abukhalaf and a subsequent PAT pass to Emerson De La Cruz.
Conforti completed a 17-yard pass to Brielle Rosemond at the start of the next drive, then raced 14 yards for a first down, and the Kits crossed midfield on another pass to Rosemond, this time a five-yarder on third down.
But the ETHS senior lost a foot race with South’s Amelia Fernandez after being chased out of the pocket, and came up two yards short of what would have been a vital first down.
Evanston had one final opportunity after forcing a punt. The Wildkits took over on their own 28 with four minutes and 14 seconds remaining and netted a big first down on a 20-yard hook-up between Conforti and sophomore Harper Wesenberg.
That was the beginning of the end. Conforti was held to no gain on a running play; a completion to Katie Lindsay-Ryan resulted in a short three-yard advance; Froeschle sacked Conforti for a two-yard loss; and the final pass of Conforti’s career fell incomplete with 74 seconds left.
The ending brought a final measure of payback for the Hawks, who were upset by the Wildkits a year ago in the regional championship game. The losers, however, limited the talented Spandiary to just 146 yards passing as the South senior completed 21-of-28 tries overall.
Rosemond offered condolences to his quarterback following the end of her flag career — “don’t put it on your shoulders, Maggie, we had some miscues, some drops, and I know you gave it 100%” — and Conforti’s impressive passing statistics in her three years as a varsity starter will be hard for any of her ETHS successors to match.
It all started for Conforti as a youngster playing catch with her father and came full circle on Tuesday.
“My dad really loved football, and since he thought I really had a great arm, he said you’ve got to try it,” noted Conforti about the school’s decision to add a flag program for girls. “I have no regrets about that. I’ve always liked football.
“Maine South is definitely up there [among the best defenses the Kits have faced], but we had multiple chances to put points on the board and we didn’t. That rusher didn’t really bring anything super new to us, I just had to get outside a little quicker tonight.
“This year was a different dynamic for us [as a team] because last year we snuck up on some teams [as a No. 7 sectional seed], and nobody expected much from us. This year, the standard was much higher, and we had to play to that standard. I’m really proud of every girl on this team because we showed what we’re capable of. We just came up short tonight.
“I’m very proud of how I performed this season [with more than 50 touchdown passes], because I was more mobile. I used my legs more and was able to throw more on the run. I think I played the best I’ve ever played.”
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