Ottawa Pirates coach Chad Gross said after Friday’s win over Streator that among the many things he wanted to see his team improve on from last season, scoring touchdowns in the red zone was high on the list.

“In years past, we’ve struggled in that aspect. We’d have drives stall after we’d get in the red zone, but this group is really priding itself on finishing what they started,” he said.

In its two games so far this season, Ottawa has moved the ball inside the opponent’s 20-yard line 10 times, five in each contest, and come away with a touchdown on every occasion.

“We worked on a ton of stuff in the red zone this summer and continue to go over all of that every week,” Gross said. “We talk a lot about how we have to finish drives when we get the ball deep into the opponent’s end. We did a great job against Plano in Week 1 and again here in Week 2 against Streator of putting the ball in the end zone after driving inside the 20.”

A matter of inches for FCW

Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland believed it had come up with a key defensive stop in the first quarter Friday against Polo.

Unfortunately for the Falcons, forward progress was awarded to Polo quarterback JT Stephenson to pick up the first down and keep the drive going.

Trailing 7-0 after punting on each of its first two drives, the Falcons faced a fourth-and-inches from their 7-yard line on defense and held strong on a quarterback sneak. However, the Marcos got just enough to keep the drive alive. Two plays later, Stephenson scored on a two-yard run to put the Marcos up 14-0.

On their next drive, the Falcons offense settled in and scored on seven plays and 51 yards, keyed by a Brezdyn Simons 21-yard pass to Logan Ruddy to make it 14-6.

Despite causing two turnovers on defense, eight points was as close as the Falcons would get the rest of the evening.

“The defense got some huge stops (Friday), and you know I thought that fourth-and-1, I thought we had the stop, and the referees said they got the first down,” FCW coach Todd Reed said.

“For our guys to hang like that and do as well as they did, especially since we had a freshman starting, a defensive lineman, Douglas Smith, I’m really proud of him and proud of our defense overall.”

Chicagoland Prairie off to 6-2 start

What’s left of the Chicagoland Prairie Conference is off to a pretty nice start to a 2025 season where each team – Marquette, Seneca, St. Bede and Dwight – had to find six nonconference opponents to fill out its nine-week slate of games.

Marquette and St. Bede are both 1-1. The Crusaders got to .500 with a bounce-back win over Madison in their home opener at Gould Stadium, while St. Bede dropped to 1-1 after being shut out in Eureka.

Both Dwight and Seneca are 2-0 and already have impressive wins on their resume – Dwight over a returning-to-varsity-play Rock Island Alleman program last Friday and Seneca by a combined score of 91-13 over two playoff teams from a year ago, defending 2A state champ Chicago Christian and last Friday to Sangamon Valley.

Week 3 will bring one more round of nonconference games for the Chicagoland Prairie’s four remaining members, with conference play running Weeks 4-6 before a final third of the season against more nonconference schools.

Seneca’s running game, defense continue to shine

The Fighting Irish added to an impressive offensive statistic in Friday’s victory over Sangamon Valley, as they rushed for over 300 yards as a team for the 30th time in their last 39 games dating back to the 2021 season.

Not surprisingly, in those contests that broke the 300-plus yard barrier on the ground, Seneca is 27-3.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Irish have allowed 80 total yards a game, one touchdown and just 2.7 yards per rushing attempt.

Week 2 scoreboard

Ottawa 50, Streator 14

Metamora 32, La Salle-Peru 20

Morris 33, Mahomet-Seymour 14

Wilmington 49, Sandwich 6

Marquette 56, Madison 14

Dwight 32, Alleman 14

Eureka 35, St. Bede 0

Seneca 44, Sangamon Valley 7

El Paso-Gridley 49, Fieldcrest 6

8-man: Polo 40, FCW 20