Tate Beran knew he had to make a play for his team.
In a game seemingly dominated by his Geneva football team – at least on the scoreboard – the first real sign of adversity struck midway through the fourth quarter.
With Wheaton Warrenville South driving to get within one score, Beran jumped in front of a Tigers receiver to not only secure the interception, but also a 28-7 Geneva victory Friday night in DuKane Conference play.
“The thing about this group is that we just keep believing,” said Beran, who returned the interception 56 yards to set up Geneva’s final touchdown of the night. “I wanted to make a play for my guys so that we can keep that belief. I knew I had safety help over the top, saw the quarterback’s eyes and jumped the route.”
Prior to Beran’s INT, Wheaton Warrenville South was able to withstand an 18-play Geneva drive that took 11:47 off of the game clock.
The Tigers stopped Geneva (2-2, 1-1 DuKane) on 4th-and-goal from the 5-yard line with 7:24 to play in a 21-7 game.
After a couple big plays and a pass interference call set WWS up at the Geneva 30, Beran snatched the momentum right back for the Vikings.
“Tate is a [heck] of a player for us,” Geneva coach Boone Thorgesen said. “He started for us last year, but he came back a different animal this year. We talk about it every day in practice about who is going to make the play. They had some momentum and for him to jump that [pass] and make a play when we needed it was huge.”
Dylan Reyes also had an interception for a Geneva defense that limited the Tigers (2-2, 1-1) to just 180 total yards, including just 32 rushing yards.
Ben Peterson threw three first-half touchdowns, including a 58-yard strike over the top of the Tigers defense to give Geneva a 21-0 lead before the break. Peterson finished the night 11-for-18 for 230 yards.
“There’s some positives to take away for sure, but there’s a handful of momentum plays where you have to credit Geneva,” WWS coach Sean Norris said. “They made those plays in big moments and we didn’t. We have a team here with a lot of character and we have to use a loss like this to grow.”
Despite the lopsided early advantage for the Vikings, Konkey credited the defense, and Beran in particular for holding down a talented Tigers offense.
“I mean any time a team is driving and has some momentum, there’s always that moment where you have to do whatever you can to not let it build and get the momentum back,” said Konkey, who finished with a game-high 124 receiving yards. “That pick by Tate Beran, I mean, what a play. That completely flipped the game around. We’ve had a couple straight losses so doubt can start to creep in, but we know we have a good football team here. That’s a really good football team in [WWS], and this is a good win to continue to build on for us.”
After back-to-back losses, including a 10-7 defeat last week to St. Charles North, the Vikings finally got to play on its home field, in front of its home crowd after playing its first three games on the road.
Despite the challenges of a different locker room, the travel, and the lack of home field advantage until Friday, Thorgesen has continued to stress not letting outside factors that are out of his team’s control matter.
“There’s some challenges to it, for sure,” said Thorgesen, who coached three straight road games to start a season for the first time in his five seasons as head coach. “But at the end of the day, we’re still playing the same game. It’s still just football and you have to find ways to get better and win football games. Tonight was a great team win and I’m really proud of the way we came out tonight.”
Owen Yorke had the lone touchdown for WWS on a 3-yard score in the third quarter, of which Geneva answered with the nearly quarter-long drive.