Oct. 25--As far as Homewood-Flossmoor is concerned, there are two Bolingbrooks.
The Vikings did not anticipate seeing the one that was 4-4, in fifth place in the Southwest Suburban Blue, coming off a rare loss to Lockport and in need of a victory over the state's No. 1 team all season to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time in 24 years.
"Bolingbrook is a heck of a football team," Homewood-Flossmoor coach Craig Buzea said. "People get caught up in their first couple losses. We met up with a team that was bigger, faster and played with more urgency than we did. We haven't seen anybody like that all year. And with all that said they had to go 87 yards against the wind against our defense and it took until the last play."
The hunted was the hunter Friday night when Bolingbrook, the 2011 Class 8A champion and consensus No. 1 team heading into the 2014 season, shocked No. 1 Homewood-Flossmoor 22-21 in an outcome that had major implications on both the 8A and 7A brackets.
Possibly the upset of the year in the Chicago area was as exciting as it was surprising.
Bolingbrook's Tuf Borland, who's headed to Ohio State to play linebacker, came back on an underthrown ball and jumped over a defender to turn what looked like a game-ending interception into a big enough gain to set up a 34-yard field goal attempt in the closing seconds.
Gino Carcerano knocked it through to send Bolingbrook to the playoffs for the 24th consecutive October and deny H-F an undefeated regular season.
"Our last five games with Bolingbrook have been just like that, so it wasn't a surprise," Buzea said. "We never had a goal of going undefeated. If it happens, it happens. I think there was some disappointment because it's been so long since we lost and Bolingbrook is a huge rival, but there are no implications moving forward.
"Even if we won, we made some glaring mistakes. If they miss the field goal, those mistakes won't go away. We have to correct those things going forward."
Upset's ripple effect: Homewood-Flossmoor's last loss -- in last year's Class 8A title game -- was also a heartbreaker and this one made their road back to the state finals more difficult to navigate.
As the No. 8 seed, the Vikings are set up to play the newly minted No. 1 team, Loyola, in the quarterfinals, assuming H-F takes care of O'Fallon and the New Trier-Lyons winner first.
That does not concern us at all," Buzea said. "The last time we played O'Fallon, we got beat in the first round. We've got to play one at a time. We just got beat by a 5-4 team and we're going to play another 5-4 team."
Bolingbrook, seeded No. 27, will play No. 6-seeded and No. 6-ranked Naperville Central in the first round.
The biggest victim of Bolingbrook's upset of Homewood-Flossmoor might have been No. 2-ranked Glenbard West.
The extra playoff point Glenbard West received because it beat Bolingbrook early in the season made Glenbard West the No. 1 seed in the Class 7A bracket.
Had H-F won, Glenbard West would have been seeded second, which as it turned out is a far more advantageous position on the bracket.
Instead of taking on Niles North (5-4) and then the Eisenhower-Harlem winner in the second round, Glenbard West will have to face either No. 12 Mount Carmel or No. 15 Glenbard North in the second round.
The Mount Carmel-Glenbard North first-round matchup could easily be a state semifinal or even championship game. Glenbard North has won seven straight after knocking off Neuqua Valley on Friday night, while Mount Carmel's 12 state championships speak for themselves.
New format, same problems: While the seeding of the Class 7A and 8A brackets were changed from geographical splits to 1-32 seeds this year, 5A and 6A are still seeded according to geography.
It's clear that neither side ensures an even distribution.
The presumptive Class 5A favorites, East Suburban Catholic Conference rivals Joliet Catholic (8-1) and Nazareth (7-2), are set up to meet in the quarterfinals.
Joliet Catholic beat Nazareth 38-35 three weeks ago in a game JCA led 31-0 at halftime.
Whether 1-32 or by geography, win-loss record is the first criteria for seeding, and tiebreakers are based on "playoff points" -- the total number of wins of all nine opponents on a given team's schedule.
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
