Wilmington head coach Jeff Reents had a short and to-the-point postgame speech to his club after Friday’s 45-0 victory over visiting Streator at Becker Field inside Reents Stadium to improve the Wildcats to 6-1 overall and 4-0 in Illinois Central Eight Conference play.

“I’m proud of the effort, I’m happy with the execution on both sides of the ball, and we’ll be getting those playoff t-shirts ordered next week,” said Reents after his squad’s third straight shutout.

With the sixth win, the Wildcats clinched a spot in the IHSA playoffs for the 29th consecutive season, all under Reents.

Wilmington, which led 7-0 after one quarter, 23-0 at halftime and 39-0 heading to the fourth, rushed 42 times for 352 yards, while holding the Bulldogs to 22 yards on 24 carries and 119 total yards.

“This was the first time for us facing an option offense, and Streator does some really good things with their quarterback out of it,” Reents said. “The key for us was can we play responsible and disciplined on defense.

“Defensively, we gave up a couple of pass plays and we’ll need to fix those things, but we really did a great job of stopping the run.”

The Wildcats’ offense was led by a nine-carry, 76-yard, four-touchdown night from Hunter Kaitschuk. Ryan Schraeger had 66 yards on eight tries, QB Billy Moore 64 on five, and Nash Rink 43 on four. Nate Cupples and Jay Nevels also scored rushing TDs.

“We had a starting running back Ryan Kettman out with a banged-up leg tonight, so we had Hunter and Nate in there to fill in, and they did a great job. I also thought we ran well with our fullback up the middle and just overall blocked well.”

Senior offensive and defensive lineman Logan Van Duyne said the message in practice all week was simple.

“All week long we talked in practice about this week being all about assignment football with what Streator runs offensively,“ Van Duyne said. The key was everyone sticking to their responsibility and trusting teammates were going to do the same. We started off slow tonight, but we got it going.”

After Kaitschuk ran for a trio of short TD runs in the first half, a 45-yard kickoff return by Nevels to start the second half was followed by a 49-yard dash by Kaitschuk.

“We wanted to come out in the second half and really take control of the momentum,” Van Duyne said. “Then Jay Nevels has a great kickoff return and on the first play Hunter takes it all the way. We definitely clicked better in the third quarter than we did in the first half.”

Streator (1-6, 0-5), which put together a couple of solid drives in the game, was led by QB Sam Lerette (9-of-16, 97 yards), Sharonn Morton (4 catches, 39 yards), and Leodies Jordan (10 carries, 27 yards).

“I loved the way we battled,” Streator first-year head coach Jay Slone said. “The guys came here to give Wilmington all they could give and we did a pretty good job with that in the first half. It’s tough to defend teams that run the wing-T, and especially teams like Wilmington that run it so well.

“We are still working on doing all of the little things correctly, and tonight we saw how those little things, if not done correctly, can add up quickly. We showed we can move the ball offensively, but when you get into the red zone, the focus has to increase even more.

“Tonight was another learning lesson for all of us. We’ll look at film and continue to work on our weaknesses and hopefully take a step forward next week.”

Next week, Wilmington is at Reed-Custer, while Streator hosts Dixon.