Scouts Need Crucial Win on the Road Against Zion

Connor Clark, Editor
October 10, 2019

The push for the IHSA Playoffs is officially in full swing for the Scouts, who need to win two of their final three games to at least have a chance to qualify for the playoffs for the tenth straight season.

The road through the playoffs goes through Zion, Illinois as the Scouts head north to take on the Zee Bee’s, looking to avenge their heartbreaking 34-31 loss to Zion-Benton from a season ago.

Zion, who surprised the North Suburban Conference as a whole by qualifying for the playoffs last year, sits at (2-4) on the year and needs to win out to make it back to back playoff seasons. With that being said, this game holds major playoff implications for both teams so you know this is going to be a hard-fought 48 minutes of football on Friday night.

These two teams come into this game with polar opposite results from the previous week, the Scouts with a 48-0 win over the Waukegan Bulldogs, the Zee Bees dominated by conference leader the Warren Blue Devils by a score of 56-6. This is good news for the Scouts as momentum and confidence will be on their side, crucial for any road game.

The big question regarding this Lake Forest team is “Have the Scouts found a quarterback?” Junior Richie Hoskins took over the starting duties under center last week as had quite the impressive debut going 7 of 11 for 145 yards and 3 touchdowns. Although Waukegan is a struggling opponent, this is a huge step forward for this squad who has had struggles at the position for the entirety of the season so far.

The big question for the defense is whether or not this is the week that senior Rylie Mills will make his return from injury. Mills has been on the sidelines since suffering a low ankle sprain in a week two loss at Wheaton North.

This Zion-Benton matchup is the first of three crucial games for the Scouts in the next three weeks. Lake Forest travels to Zion, then are at home against two rivals in Libertyville (2-4) and Stevenson (3-3).

Here is how qualifying for the IHSA State Playoffs works. Six wins gets you an automatic bid in the postseason field no matter who you played or how you won, six is the “magic number” if you will for all teams throughout the state of Illinois. Five wins gets you a chance at an at large playoff bid but it all comes down to opponents “points.” These “points” are decided by how many wins your opponents have gathered over the entirety of the season, those are added up and calculated into a point system where that ultimately decides your postseason fate.

This is definitely a winnable game for the Boys in Blue, it is just a matter of going out and playing with confidence, just like we saw last week.