Bolingbrook coach Titcus Pettigrew stood at midfield, reflecting on his team’s achievement, when he was blindsided by two giddy kids drenching him with a bucket of ice water on the coldest Friday of the season after his team beat Yorkville, 26-21.

A season of sneaking up, it’s been in Bolingbrook.

The Raiders, a year removed from finishing last in their first season in a new league, with 17 of 22 starters underclassmen, started 1-2.

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Football: Yorkville at Bolingbrook Bolingbrook's Tyson Ward (7) runs on a keeper during football game between Yorkville at Bolingbrook Friday, Oct 24, 2025 in Bolingbrook. (Gary E Duncan Sr. for Shaw Local)

Five turnovers were their undoing in the season opener, a game they amassed 500 yards of offense. The wheels came off at halftime first conference game at Oswego.

“We’re young, and we’re growing up by baptism,” Pettigrew said. “Those are the mistakes they made early, but they’ve cleaned it up.”

The Raiders indeed have cleaned up good. Now they’re champions.

Quarterback Tyson Ward’s 9-yard touchdown run with just over a minute left, the fourth lead change in the last quarter and change Friday, proved the difference.

Peyton Williams recovered a Yorkville fumble on the game’s last possession, clinching Bolingbrook’s win over the visiting Foxes and the Southwest Prairie West championship.

Bolingbrook (7-2, 4-1), winners of six straight games to finish the regular season, is a conference champion for the first time since 2013.

“It’s all the hard work we put in during the offseason,” Ward said. “We knew what we were capable of.”

The Raiders got the ball at their 20 with 5:56 left, trailing 21-18 after the Foxes had gone ahead on Jack Beetham’s 33-yard TD pass to Jayden Ruth on fourth-and-long.

Bolingbrook went the 80 yards in 10 plays, all runs by junior running back TJ Lewis or Ward.

Ward converted a fourth-and-3 with a 5-yard run, and next play scored on the 9-yard run with 1:24 left.

Ward rushed for 118 yards and two scores and threw for 64 with clutch third and fourth-down conversions to keep scoring drives alive.

“Just made for the moment,” Ward said. “You got to be special when you got to be special.”

Lewis, too, was indeed special when it mattered.

Limited to 30 yards at half, he was told by Pettigrew that in the second half, it was going to be him and Ward. True to that word, all but two Bolingbrook plays in the second half were Lewis or Ward runs.

Lewis, a violent runner with speed to boot, rushed for 173 yards in the second half, his sensational 42-yard TD run, stiff-arming a defender on his way outside with 10:39 left, putting Bolingbrook ahead 18-14.

“My coaches said at halftime my cutback lanes would be there, every single one of them was there,” Lewis said. “Coach also gave me a responsibility don’t get tackled. I couldn’t get tackled.”

“Sometimes you just watch him in awe,” Pettigrew said. “At the end of the day, what he does is sheer will. His work ethic is like nothing else. He is a man on a mission and he has a purpose.”

Ward’s 25-yard TD run midway through the second quarter sent Bolingbrook into halftime ahead 12-7. Yorkville, capitalizing on a Ward fumble, went ahead 14-12 with 55.9 seconds left in the third quarter on a Beetham run.

Lewis put Bolingbrook back ahead, but back came Yorkville (7-2, 3-2), Beetham throwing a perfect ball to a streaking Ruth for the Foxes’ final lead.

Beetham was 14-for-23 passing for 148 yards and T.J. Harland rushed for 67 yards for Yorkville, which was playing Friday for its second SPC West title, first outright.

“Our kids are fighters, I think they like to play for each other and play with each other,” Yorkville coach Dan McGuire said. “We didn’t come here to just say we play hard. We came here to win a game and we didn’t, and it stings.”

Bolingbrook forced three turnovers, the first setting up Lewis’ TD run for the first score of the game. The last stopped Yorkville after the Foxes crossed midfield, as Bolingbrook remained unbeaten at home.

“It’s so fulfilling to see the challenge, because we knew Yorkville was good. They were 7-1 for a reason,” Pettigrew said. “To watch our boys go on an 80-yard drive and our defense grow up and get a stop, that is playoff caliber. I love it.”