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Nothing like a tough test in Week 1 to show you what your football team is made of.
The Sterling Golden Warriors open the season in Lake Villa on Friday night, playing against perennial 6A playoff team Lakes High School. It will be a good measuring stick before the Warriors welcome perennial powerhouse Lombard Montini to Roscoe Eades Stadium in Week 2.
“We get a good couple of tests to start this year, but we’re looking forward to them, and approaching it going 100% full speed,” Sterling senior Jaryn Garza said. “We’re ready to take on the challenge, and we’re going to prepare hard and hope it’s a good ballgame.”
Sterling is coming off a spring season where it finished 5-1, with the last game a loss to United Township. It was just the second regular-season loss in five years for the Warriors, and left a bitter taste in their mouths all throughout the shortened offseason.
“With all the guys we have returning this year, it’s just kind of fueling our fire,m” senior Drew Kested said. “We’re not used to losing, so we want to go out there and prove to everybody that it was a fluke and we don’t want it to happen again.”
Lakes went 0-5 last spring, but has made the playoffs in 11 straight seasons, eight times in Class 6A and three times in 5A.
Sterling coach Jon Schlemmer believes that youth was the main culprit for the Eagles’ tough season in the spring, and expects them to be back to their formidable selves Friday.
“I know they were really young last year, and on film it looked like they got better as it went throughout the spring,” Schlemmer said. “They’ve got a lot of guys coming back, so with only a four-month turnaround, I can’t imagine their learning curve was too big. It’s a good program, a good coach, and they’re going to be prepared.
“It’s a pretty good trip for us, but our kids are used to those things, so we’ve got to get on a bus and go up there and understand what our task is when we get there.”
The Warriors see some familiar things when they turn on tape of Lakes. The Eagles will feature a nice balance of run and pass – like a lot of teams in the Western Big 6, Sterling included – and a tough defense that can be physical and make plays.
“They run some similar formations and sets as us, and I think they still want to run the ball, from what we’ve seen – good teams usually do that, and they’ve had a lot of success over the last couple of years,” Schlemmer said. “We’ve got to play together, understand exactly where we’re supposed to be and when we’re supposed to be there, and all the other things we need to do will follow.”
It’s a Sterling team that is lost its top four rushers and top four receivers from last spring either to graduation or injury, and will have a new quarterback in the platoon rotation with Kested. But the new faces have been meshing well during preseason practice, and the Warriors are looking to reload once again.
“We have had a lot of guys who have stepped up and have really brought something new to our program,” Garza said. “We’ve got a lot more spunk than we’ve had before, and we’ve really just picked up where we left off [last spring] and just kept going ahead full speed.
But the thing the Warriors most want to do with the first two tests heading into the Western Big 6 season is prove themselves against elite competition and get people talking about Sterling football.
“That’s exactly what it is. These first two games are our chance to say, ‘Hey, we’re ready to go, we’re ready to play no matter who’s on the other side,’ and this is exactly what we’ve been preparing for,” Garza said.
‘Like any team, we respect them,” Kested added, “but we’re excited to be back out there and make that Week 1 trip. The end goal is always to go out and get the win, so we’re going to all do our jobs and hopefully come out on top.”