Ramblers go down swinging in playoff-opening slugfest

Playing in the unfriendly confines of Carey Field on Saturday evening Loyola Academy came close to pulling off the biggest upset of the season in Illinois high school football.

But undefeated Mount Carmel surmounted two deficits, enabling the state’s top-ranked team to dethrone the winners of the last three IHSA Class 8A championships by scoring a 21-17 victory in the opening round of the IHSA Class 8A tournament.

“We fought to the very end,” Loyola coach Beau Desherow said. “We went down with everything we had. We played well enough to win if it wasn’t for two big plays.”

Senior quarterback Emmett Dowling and sophomore wide receiver Marshaun Thornton were the difference makers for the Caravan, which moved up to Class 8A after capturing the Class 7A crown in each of the past three seasons.

Dowling connected with Thornton on a 92-yard game-winning touchdown pass play with 6 minutes 15 seconds left on the clock after instigating the Caravan’s comeback by teaming with Thornton on an 80-yard play with 2 minutes remaining in the first half.

Then, Dowling’s 4-yard run with 3:32 to play in the third quarter punctuated by the second of sophomore Ethan Hammer’s three extra-point kicks tied the score at 14.

Senior Zak Zeman’s 48-yard field goal in the third minute of the fourth quarter put Loyola back in front, and the Ramblers appeared to have seized the momentum a few plays later when senior defensive back Tommy Fowler intercepted a pass and ran it back to the Mount Carmel 15.

The Ramblers penetrated to the home team’s 6-yard line, but the Caravan held on fourth down and took over the football.

Dowling ran for 2 yards on the next play from scrimmage and then connected with Thornton on the pass down the middle that produced the 92-yard game-winning TD.

The Ramblers battled back and made it to the Caravan’s 34-yard line with 52 seconds to play when wide receiver Joe Haughey made a diving catch of a 25-yard pass thrown by fellow junior Dom Maloney in a fourth-and-15 situation

But Mount Carmel proceeded to put heavy pressure on the Loyola quarterback and kept his receivers from getting clear, resulting in four straight incompletions. Then time ran out.

The only team to come closer than the Ramblers to defeating the Caravan (10-0) was Ohio powerhouse Archbishop Moeller, which lost the season-opener 43-42.

In the final game of the regular season at Hoerster Field on Oct.24, the Ramblers had Mount Carmel down by three points early in the second half before faltering and losing 35-24. Saturday’s defeat was the Ramblers’ fourth in a row and the perennial powerhouse wound up with an out-of-character 4-5 record.

Graduation took a heavy toll on this year’s Ramblers, and Desherow relied heavily on sophomores and juniors on offense.

Maloney’s 1-yard run produced their first touchdown with under two minutes to play in the first quarter, and the junior quarterback tossed a 6-yard TD pass to sophomore wide receiver Jordan McKinley with 2:10 play in the half. Zeman’s extra point kick made the score 14-0, but that lead lasted for only 10 seconds.

On the first play after Zeman’s kickoff went into the end zone for a touchback, Dowling and Thornton collaborated on the 80-yard TD that was the first of their two explosive aerial plays.

“We were the 32nd (and last) seed and barely got into the playoffs and some people call this the best team Mount Carmel ever had, but they were in a dogfight today,” Desherow said. “At the end of the day they scored four more points.”

Maloney made his second start of the season and was in the forefront of the all-out attempt to knock off the high-and-mighty Caravan. He was injured in the fourth quarter of the season-opening triumph at Merrillville, Indiana, didn’t play in the next game and thereafter played behind sophomore Matthew Lee.

This game marked the first time that Maloney showed he also can be a weapon to complement diminutive sophomore halfback Melo Maldonado in the ground attack.

“One of the things we like about Dom is that he has the ability to run, to make plays with his feet,” Desherow said.

“It was great to be back out there,” said Maloney, who accounted for 161 yards passing with 13 completions in 27 attempts and ran 13 times for 55 yards.

Maloney lauded his receivers, McKinley and Haughey in particular.

“I think Jordan is the best receiver in the state,” he said of McKinley. “And Joe (Haughey) is a really good athlete who made a lot of outstanding plays for us. And I can’t say enough about the way our seniors battled this year.”

One of the highest profile seniors was 6-foot-8 offensive tackle Tommy Fraumann, who will play college football at Miami of Ohio. He played his high school freshman year at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before moving to Wilmette when his mother took a job at DePaul University.

“I have a lot of family here but I didn’t know anyone else when I came to summer camp before my sophomore year,” he recalled. “I fell in love with the team; there’s such a brotherhood here. Football here is so much different than it was at Pioneer. We have great fans and great competition. Everyone cares so much about football.”

Fraumann made his Loyola debut on the sophomore team and became a starter on the varsity in the fourth game of his junior season.

“At Pioneer I had dreams of playing college football; the Loyola coaches made my dreams come true,” he said.

Henry Lemmon, a senior right guard on the offensive unit, pointed out that Fraumann’s size helped him to excel in protecting Lee and Maloney in passing situations.

Lemmon had a noteworthy senior season after injuries marred his junior year. He recovered from an injury at the start of 2024 summer workouts and started on defense at nose guard before being reinjured in the fourth game against St. Ignatius and missing the remainder of that championship season.

Although the Ramblers were unable to replicate their success story, Lemmon cherishes the memory of his senior year and the bond he has formed with his teammates.

“I couldn’t be any prouder of the guys I’ve been playing with,” he said.

One of those guys is defensive end Nick Richter, and he and Lemmon will continue to be teammates when they play college football at the University of Chicago next year.

“When I found out Henry was going there too I was very excited,” Richter said.

Looking back on his Loyola career, Richter considers last season’s playoff semifinal victory at Lincoln-Way East as “the biggest moment of my football career.”

“They were undefeated and the favorite to win the championship and we beat them at their place,” he remembered.

Meanwhile, the sophomores and juniors on the team were already thinking about the 2026 season when they left their locker room for the ride back to Wilmette from the South Side.

“Getting bigger and stronger are my (offseason) priorities,” said junior defensive back Wes Gundlach.

“I want to be the best player I can be and come back and get revenge against those guys we lost to tonight.”

“We’ll be back, there’s no doubt about that,” Desherow predicted.

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