Is youth football starting to pay of for L-P?

Right off the bat, Evan Hardy, Logan Turigliatti and Jake Wagner enjoyed success on the football field.

In their first year playing in the La Salle-Peru Youth Football League, the three helped their team place second.

The next year, Hardy, Turigliatti and Wagner helped the Apaches win their age group with a 6-1 record.

Now seniors on the La Salle-Peru football team, the three have enjoyed plenty of success over the years as they have played on the same team every year for nearly a decade.

“After 10 years playing together, you obviously build chemistry,” Wagner said. “I know these guys are here for me. You grow a relationship on a personal level as well as within the game.”

While Hardy, Turigliatti and Wagner have been on the same team throughout their careers, there are many players on this year’s L-P squad that went through the L-P Youth Football League, which began play in 2011 for players in grades 2-8.

The LPYFL has become the main youth program for players heading to L-P instead of the Illinois Valley Youth Football League, which still serves players in other area communities for players in fifth grade and older.

In fact, L-P quarterback Tyler Hartman and linebacker Nathan Hachenberger also were on that Apaches team that won the second-fourth grade division.

“I’m pretty sure 90-95 percent of our kids have played some youth football,” fifth-year L-P coach Jose Medina said. “I think it’s been a positive. I’ve been here for 19 years. We’ve seen when the youth teams run our offense, it progresses into the high school.”

Medina helps coach his son’s seventh grade team and has helped implement the Cavaliers’ triple option offense.

However, Medina would like to see the L-P offense used more in youth football, which he feels will happen more and more as the Cavaliers show success running it.

This season in their third year running the system, the Cavs are averaging 260.5 rushing yards and 26.8 points per game en route to a 3-1 record entering Friday’s game against Plano (2-2).

“They’re running mid-line, the bellies, the counters and things like that,” Medina said. “They’re using our terminology and formations. As long as it’s working here, I think it’s going to be easier to push our youth guys to install that offense as well.

“We’re slowly getting successful at the offense. It’s showing growth, especially this year.”

Hardy said playing youth football gives players an advantage as they enter high school.

“It helps, 100 percent,” Hardy said. “If someone just comes out for football freshman year of high school compared to kids who played youth football, you’re huge steps behind them.

“Youth football is just learning the game, learning how to play - tackling and all the fundamentals.”

Wagner feels having those fundamental skills gives players the right mindset as they start their high school careers.

“You learn the basics of football and you build that confidence that you know what you’re doing when you get to the high school level,” Wagner said.

While coming through the youth ranks and learning the game, Wagner and his friends idolized the Cavaliers who came before them.

“(L-P assistant) coach (Alec “Moose”) Duncan was someone I looked up to when I was in youth football,” Wagner said. “Now I’m in his position. It’s cool. You look up to those guys for sure.”

Hardy, Turigliatti and Wagner hope to come full circle and end their careers together the same way they started — with a winning record — while setting an example for the next wave of L-P youth players.

At 3-1 with winnable games against Plano (2-2) and Ottawa (1-3) the next two weeks, the Cavs are in good position to qualify for the postseason for the first time since 2009.

“It’s looking up,” Turigliatti said. “It would be awesome if we did (make the playoffs) to end that drought we’ve had for so long. This community has kind of fell off of L-P football for a while. Now they’re coming back because we’re doing good.

“We’re still not there yet. We still have to earn it.”