With 11 Wins, LW North Phoenix Football Rose to the Challenge of 2015

Lincoln-Way North’s Pat Troike runs a punt 86 yards for a touchdown against Hinsdale South on Nov. 14.

» Watch many more highlight videos from the 2015 season on MaxPreps.com

Lincoln-Way North’s football program may one day rise again, like the namesake Phoenix that has served as school mascot for the last eight years.

But Saturday, this team’s season came to a bitter end. The Phoenix ended the 2015 season — its last for the foreseeable future — with an 11-1 record. LW North fell to Hinsdale South 42-35 in the Class 6A quarterfinal playoff.

Lincoln Way District 210 was forced to close the high school starting with the 2016 school year for lack of money. The school opened just eight years ago.

Head football coach George Czart has been on the sidelines for every one of those years. In his first year, the team went 0-9.

“Our kids really are a bunch of determined young men. We never gave up, always gave our best effort, love playing the game of football,” Czart said after the game, according to a Chicago Tribune report. “If they carry on and do things in school and in their job the way they play football, they’re going to be very successful people. I’m proud to be associated with them.

“I’m gonna miss them.”

LW North’s students will be folded into LW East, and the athletes will be forced to compete against East’s athletes for positions on the various sports teams.

LW North’s football team was on a mission this year to make this final season special. The team went undefeated during the regular season, beating Lincoln-Way Central 45-18 and Lincoln-Way West 28-21 in overtime. The Phoenix finished at the top of the Southwest Suburban Red standings as the only undefeated team in the conference. LW Central finished 3-4 and LW West finished 5-2.

On Oct. 23, ahead of the game with LW West, ABC 7 Chicago featured North’s school spirit in its Friday Flyover broadcast.

MaxPreps.com ranked LW North’s varsity football squad ninth in the state and 531st in the country.

LW North battled with Hinsdale to the very final minute. Certainly, there were tears on the sidelines and in the locker room after the game. There will be no “next year” for the Phoenix.

“I just felt bad we couldn’t get the victory for the community,” Czart said. “It’s a great community we have here.”

No one knows how long this high school will remain closed, nor do they know whether District 210 administrators will be able to pull out of the financial predicament that prompted the school’s closing.

In September, when the school board decided to close his school, Czart took the news hard — as did most of his colleagues and the students at LW North.

“I felt sick to my stomach,” Czart told the Tribune. “As much as I thought I’d be ready for it, when they announced it, it hit me hard.”

His team, however, responded with a very special season. Even without a state championship, the Phoenix delivered memories neither they nor the Lincoln-Way North community will ever forget.