Madison football: Blue Streaks' overtime win comes after rugged week of practice
Sep. 24—The grass at Dick Hamblin Field is green and the host Madison Blue Streaks were dressed in blue, but all Carson Alley saw was the parting of the Red Sea.
Running around the right end, the junior from Madison scored from 20 yards out to give the Blue Streaks a 20-14 overtime win over North on Sept. 23, thus snapping his team's four-game losing streak.
"Big. Very big," Alley said of the magnitude of the win. "We've worked so hard for this and we'll keep working. ... I saw the hole to the right and I saw the end zone. It was crazy. I can't explain it."
The team had fallen on some hard times since a 13-7 win over Geneva in the season-opener. In the four games that followed, Madison was outscored 143-18. The combined record of those four opponents (Lakeside, Perry, South and Riverside) is 18-6.
"After last week's loss to Riverside, which might be the best team I've coached against in 25 years, we went back to the drawing board and had the hardest practices we've had all year," Coach Mike Gilligan said. "It was back to refocusing. We got after our team pretty good. They're so young, we have to teach them to do the right things."
Madison needed a comeback effort to get past the 0-6 Rangers. After Curtis Thomas' 48-yard touchdown run in the third, North had a 14-6 lead. Madison pulled even in the fourth when Alley scored on an 11-yard run and Ben Amos scored on a two-point conversion.
"Ben made a really big play," Gilligan said. "We had a penalty, so the attempt was about the 12. He caught a nice one in the corner to tie it. That was the play of the game."
North had an opportunity late to go ahead, but Madison's defense got a stop inside the 10 yardline. It was one of three stops Madison's defense got near the goalline.
It all came down to overtime, where Alley cashed in. part of an evening in which he ran for 81 yards and threw for 89.
Madison (2-4) has now eclipsed the win total of last year's 1-9 team. The Blue Streaks play Kenston in Week 7.
"The celebration was unlike anything I've ever experienced," Alley said. "Everyone was running onto the field and screaming. It was crazy. Definitely a big win for us."
