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O'FALLON, ILL. — If there is one thing O'Fallon football coach Brandon Joggerst trusts the most about his team, it's his swarming defense.

That defense did the trick Friday night as the host Panthers upended top-seeded Lincoln-Way East 17-16 in the second round of the Illinois Class 7A state playoffs.

O'Fallon, the fifth seed in the top bracket, improved to 8-3 and will play the winner of today's East St. Louis-Minooka game next weekend in a quarterfinal contest. The day and time will be announced Monday.

East, which committed five turnovers that led to two Panthers touchdowns, ended its season at 9-2.

"We have great faith in our defense and they were able to come through tonight," Joggerst said. "They (East) haven't scored less than 24 points this year, but to shut them down to 14 and a safety we gave at the end, what more can you say. They were tremendous. We think we're a very good defense. We think we can match up with people. We made some big plays."

The biggest plays in the end weren't on defense. They were miscues by the Griffins.

The first came with East trailing 17-14 and 1 minute, 48 seconds remaining in the game. With the Griffins at the O'Fallon 5-yard-line and facing third down and goal, quarterback Ryne Van Gennep found a wide open Matt Hartmann in the back of the end zone for what looked like a game-winning touchdown.

But a penalty for an ineligible lineman down field negated the score, moving the ball back to the 10. After an incomplete pass made it fourth and goal, Griffins coach Rob Zvonar burned two timeouts before sending out kicker Kyle Moore for a potential game-tying 27-yard field goal into a stiff wind. Moore got enough leg into the kick, but it sailed wide right with 1:38 remaining.

That gave the ball back to the Panthers, and they ran three plays up the middle trying to burn the final 98 seconds. Then on fourth and 5 from the 25, punter John Bouquet ran out of the end zone for a safety with 8.1 seconds left.

Zvonar was perplexed by the ineligible receiver penalty.

"I'm not sure how your center does that," he said. "On a pass play, your center snaps the ball and protects the gap. I'm not sure how he was down field. But you know what, they called it so it must have been true. It shouldn't have come down to the ballgame. O'Fallon made plays when they needed to. It was more of an O'Fallon win than a loss by us."

The Panthers got all their points in the first half on a 35-yard first-quarter field goal by Kurt Rosenbaum and second quarter points on a 67-yard interception return by B.J. Hendrix and a 4-yard run by Hendrix as O'Fallon led 17-7 at halftime.

East's touchdowns were a 3-yard run by Kevin Starke in the first quarter and a 5-yard run by Matt Hartmann in the fourth quarter.