Eagle Nation has high hopes this year against Reaper Nation!

By: Ryan Plinske

Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 1:03pm

This is the day both Eagle fans and players have been waiting for almost a year now. Last year Plano defeated the Eagles of Aurora Christian 14-6 en route to return to Champaign to defend for their second straight IHSA Class 3A state title. However this year is entirely different. Both teams moved up to Class 4A with the likes of the 7 time champion powerhouse of Driscoll.

However Aurora Christian maintained their second straight undefeated regular season 9-0, just dominating their conference that has Chicago Christian, Walther Lutheran and their non-conference games against Mendota and Immaculate Conception.

Plano survived this season with a record of 5-4 with losses to Coal City, Sandwich (which those two teams are meeting this week against each other in 4A playoffs), Peotone, and Wilmington. Plano's coach has always had a few tricks up his sleeve whether its with his wing-t offense, wearing the all black jerseys like last year against Aurora Christian, or the many trick plays in his offensive playbook. Now with that said this season was far from acceptable for their fans after having gone 13-1 last year and winning state 2 years in a row.

The game last year was held at Plano High School but this year the #1 seed of 4A, Aurora Christian gets their chance to hold their first ever home playoff game on their newly finished, state of the art athletic field turf facility. This field was finished early into the season but it is slowly becoming one of the nicest to play at with their pro-style locker room, the family friendly yet competitive atmosphere and the hopes of becoming a powerhouse under 5th year head coach Don Beebe.

This game will feature the weapons of Aurora Christian's highly talented 4th year starting quarterback Jordan Roberts, the x-factors at wideout Matt Morse and David Zielke, and the very powerful running back Lewis Gaddis. The defense is anchored around defensive lineman Peter Kariotis and linebacker Ryan Perik. One thing that will be different this year is the kicking game AC has finally found in the right foot of Jake Van Gilse. I expect this game to be close but in the end AC has just too much fire power and the Reapers won't have enough to stop them. Aurora Christians hopes of their first ever state championship lies in close sight with this years football team.