It’s a luxury most teams don’t enjoy — having a Big Ten recruit and being able to pick and choose when to use him.
So it is with Lincoln-Way East, which kept Michigan-bound receiver AJ Henning, the state’s top-ranked senior, mostly in reserve until late in the third quarter of Saturday’s Class 8A semifinal at Marist.
Then Henning scored two touchdowns in three possessions and the Griffins were on their way back to the state finals in DeKalb with a 24-7 win.
Junior running back Jamal Johnson carried the load most of the day for Lincoln-Way East (13-0), grinding out 175 yards on 28 carries and scoring on a 14-yard run in the first quarter.
“Jamal was just making so much happen early on, it was very hard for the defense to stop him,” Henning said. “So coach (Rob Zvonar) was ready to run the offense through him.”
But after defensive back Matt Kordas recovered a fumble for his second takeaway of the game, the Griffins struck quickly with Henning’s 15-yard catch setting up his own three-yard TD run.
That pushed the Griffins’ lead to 17-7, and Zvonar was ready to turn to his four-star recruit for the finishing touch.
“Going into the fourth quarter, I grabbed 3 (Henning) and said, ‘I need one from you,’” Zvonar said.
It came with 6:27 left in the game when Henning turned quarterback Kyle Quinn’s shovel pass into a 66-yard TD and a 24-7 lead.
“We run that play a lot,” Henning said. “It was really set up by the blocking on the perimeter. Max Tomczak made a great block on the outside for me to get a crease.”
Henning finished with three catches for 85 yards and 104 yards on 10 total touches.
“Jamal stepped up when (running back) Devon Williams went down and ... that’s tremendous to have the depth at that spot,” Zvonar said. “We can use AJ in other ways.”
On the other side of the ball, Lincoln-Way East was plus-three in turnovers for the first time this season. Marist (8-5) was down 10-7 and driving for a potential go-ahead TD in the second quarter when Kordas picked off a Hayden Mikesell pass in the end zone.
Josh Vargas, playing with a torn labrum, added another interception in the fourth quarter to effectively seal the win.
“We knew we were the best defense in the state coming into this,” Kordas said. “We worked our butt off all week and we knew we were going to come out here and do our thing.”
Mikesell passed for 178 yards -- mostly to Brendan Barry (72 yards) and Carnell Tate (62 yards) -- and ran for 45 more. But the RedHawks didn’t score after Mikesell’s 27-yard TD pass to Barry on fourth-and-nine with 8:51 left in the second quarter.
Now it’s back to DeKalb for the Griffins and Henning, who ran for 154 yards and two TDs when Lincoln-Way East beat Loyola in the 2017 8A final.
“Last time we were there, I can still picture it perfectly in my mind,” Henning said. “We did special things on that field two years ago and we’re looking to do it again next week.”
