Volume 2 – Issue No. 9

It certainly was nice of the folks at Sandwich to go to such trouble to make the Wildcats feel as though they were playing at home – smoke-filled tunnel of fans and flags, large noisy crowd and an impressive pre-game fireworks display. Being imitated that way really is flattering.

Three consecutive undefeated regular seasons. You might suspect that it’s unprecedented in the 64 years of Wilmington football history, but it’s not. The teams of 2002-2004 accomplished the same feat, and just for good measure the Reents-Southall-Murphy-coached squads in 1996 and 1997 had perfect regular-season records, too. In eight of their 17 seasons together, their teams forgot to lose a game before the playoffs.

The playoffs are where the quest begins once again for the elusive 14-game winning streak in a single season. We’ll talk about our first-round foe, Winnebago, on the other side, but let’s savor the win at Sandwich first.

Some fans might argue, but I think that the Sandwich game might have been our best effort of 2010–and we did it with Jeremy Bailey, Ty Farmer, Cory Lagas and a couple of others in street clothes along the sidelines. We had no lost fumbles and no Wilmington passes were picked off.

Special Teams contributed heavily. Every kick we received was handled cleanly, including some fair catches. In the second quarter, with their teammates blocking well (and NOT in the back!) Zach Skoryi returned a punt 25 yds to the Sandwich 37, and Garrett Saulters ran another one back to midfield. Those led to our second score and a 14-0 halftime lead.

Right after our second touchdown late in the second quarter, we executed an onside kick to perfection. We didn’t score, but it kept the ball out of the hands of Sandwich’s offense. Our kicking was solid as well, and kept the Indians on a long field. Their average starting field position was their 28 yard-line. In contrast, our drives averaged beginning at our 41.

Steve Liaromatis may have to take his O-line out to dinner if they keep up their work making him look so good. Steve had a great game against Coal City, but against Sandwich, he picked up 11 more yards on six fewer carries. My clipboard showed him with 19 rushes for 155 yards for an 8.16 average. Included in those numbers were 5 carries for ten yards or more. The focus on Liaromatis helped Blake Olson turn in his most productive game of 2010, with 91 yards of rushing. As a team, we logged 288 yards on 43 carries. We didn’t show our passing game Friday, but we didn’t need it.

The defense was sparkling again, although I detected just one sack for 8 yards, and that was largely negated by a facemask penalty. On the first Sandwich possession after half time, the Indians ran three plays and picked up a first down. On the next play, however, Garrett Saulters, picked up a loose ball someone had stripped and snaked through the Sandwich offense for a 51-yard score. It was Saulters’ second TD on defense this year. The other was a 19-yard interception return against Dwight.

After that score, we kicked off and Sandwich put together a six-play drive that covered 42 yards, before again fumbling the ball to Wilmington. Our center, Mike Popovich, didn’t get a chance to snap the ball to our QB, Ty Anderson, in the second half until the clock showed 6:14 left in the third. The nine running plays that followed featured senior Blake Olson, who had four carries including the TD scamper from 38 yards out. That made the score 28-0.

The final stats showed Sandwich with 40 carries for 152 tries, but that is deceiving. After three periods, they had run the ball 23 times and amassed 48 yards. In the last quarter, they fattened up their stats with 107 more yards on the ground, but that was their starters still on the field. So dominant was the Wilmington defense that Sandwich’s only first-half first down was on a facemask penalty. In the second half, the Indians picked up two more first downs on penalties, and seven on the ground, but five of those seven were in that fourth quarter.

If Sandwich seemed excited about their football team, I guess it’s understandable. Until this season, they had never won more than six games in one season. They are headed to the playoffs (4A) for just the fourth time in history. The Indians haven’t yet won a playoff game, however. In 1985, they lost to Lemont, 20-12 in 3A. In 2002, they lost in 4A to Rochester 36-25, and two years ago, Coal City ousted them in Round 1 of 4A, by a 17-10 score.

As we stood along the fence at Sandwich, the people to our right were from Plano. They volunteered that they had come to watch some “real football”. Plano ended up 2-7 after opening the season with victories over Lisle and Seneca.

At Catbackers last week, the sixteen seniors on this year’s football team were congratulated for their hard work and collective accomplishments. Many of them had played many minutes and quarters as sophomores, and in those three seasons, they’ve accumulated a record of 31 wins and 2 losses. Those losses were in the quarter-finals by a total of nine points.

The varsity Defensive Player of the Week for the game against Coal City, was #14, Trent Howard, who blocked a pair of PAT’s, played tough pass coverage, and caught a 46-yard pass on the other side of the ball. His Offensive POTW counterpart was #78, Bobby Warren, who stepped up in the O-Line when Ty Farmer was injured. The Fresh-Soph POTW was #10, Jeremy Kaniewski for his work in the 21-7 win over the Coalers. The Freshman POTW was #77, Nate Rock, whose team won 27-21 to make it a three-for-three sweep over Coal City football this season.

Winnebago is a town of around 2,000 people just west of Rockford on Route 20. Their football enrollment is 566, which means that as of 9-30-09, they had 91 more high school students than we did. When Winnebago gets off the bus here next weekend, it will look as though Sandwich showed up for a rematch. Winnebago’s nickname is “the Indians” and their colors are orange and black, all just like Sandwich.

They play in the Big Northern West Conference which includes defending 3A state champs Stillman Valley. The Indians had a 5-4 record, but all four teams that defeated them are in the 2010 playoffs. They include Richmond-Burton, which is Manteno’s first-round opponent in 4A, Byron, whose first round foe is Aurora Christian in 3A, Stillman Valley in 3A, who beat Winnebago 42-14, and Oregon which is in the 3A playoff field.

Among the five teams that Winnebago defeated, only one (Genoa-Kingston) had a winning record (6-3) and the other four had a combined slate of 8-28. Winnebago made the playoffs last year with an opening-round win over Aurora Christian by a 28-14 score, before being ousted by Stillman 35-0. Winnebago High School was absent from the playoffs in 2007 and 2008. Their “forever” playoff record is 3-8 in eight appearances.

We can’t afford to look past anyone, including Winnebago, but it would be nice if Aurora Christian could pick up a win at Oregon Friday night. If things worked out that we face Stillman in Week Three, the game would be played on Becker Field.

I’m not sure how we ended up with a Friday evening game on Becker Field, but it’s just what the doctor ordered. I wonder if Mr. Reents (like Brer Fox) told Winnebago, “You select whatever day and time suits you, but PLEASE, PLEASE don’t make it Friday at 7:00″.

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