:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/OUL4HJDPUJD7RIB66N6SWVTRYM.jpg)
STERLING – The first week saw Sterling pull away in the second half for a win at Lake Villa Lakes. Week 2 of the 2021 season brings in another challenge for the Golden Warriors, as Montini comes to town.
Facing two perennial playoff teams, including one which knocked Sterling out in a Class 5A semifinal in 2018, is a tough way to open a new campaign.
Sterling’s AJ Kested sees this as a chance for the Warriors to “learn how we compete with these bigger schools. These guys have a lot of talent, so we need to know how we’re going to compete in the playoffs when we get there.”
Montini, the six-time state champion, is going to show Sterling a lot of things the Warriors don’t normally see in the Western Big 6.
“You’re going to see a really good team, you’re going to see a well-coached team, you’re going to see good athletes,” Sterling coach Jon Schlemmer said. “You click on their film and last Friday, when they played such a high-level game, they do some things on both sides of the ball that we really don’t see a whole lot in our league. They throw a lot of hot routes, they throw a lot of uncovered stuff. That’s tough for us. We play a lot of zone. They put you in a really big pickle.”
Montini comes in following a 17-15 loss to fellow powerhouse IC Catholic in which defense played a major role, with Evan Raczkowski and Eric Melendez picking off IC Catholic passes.
“Their defense, they have a lot of fast corners, safeties and a couple of big linemen returning from last year,” Kested said. “Our linemen have to block and our backs have to keep getting vertical, getting our yards.”
In looking at Montini’s defense, what impresses Schlemmer is the attention to detail.
“They bring guys from all over the place,” Schlemmer said. “It’s so coach-talk cliché, but they just do things right. You watch when their read key goes away where their hands are, you watch their first step. The little things you can tell are taught well. In big-time programs like they are, you don’t have that success without paying attention to the details like they clearly have.”
Offensively and on special teams, AJ Kested made his impact felt Week 1. He fielded five punts and put up 57 punt return yards, then in the kick return game he returned three kickoffs for 69 yards. He also had 35 rushing yards.
“Really my linemen and everyone on special teams have been making good blocks for me to be able to get vertical and keep running as fast as I can,” he said.
Defensively, the Golden Warriors are coming off a Week 1 win in which they shut out Lakes in the second half. After Lakes got a field goal and a touchdown out of back-to-back drives late in the first quarter and early in the second, Lakes’ remaining possessions resulted in five punts and two fumbles.
“We were all just making all of our tackles,” Sterling linebacker Lance Wren said. “We were all getting off our blocks really good. Our corners did a remarkable job. Everyone was doing their job the way they were supposed to.”
Montini got on the board first in the Week 1 loss to IC Catholic, but its offense ground to a halt in the face of a strong IC Catholic defense. Montini scored on its first drive of the game last week, a 14-yard pass from Cole Teschner to Mario Florio.
“They have a lot of hitches,” Wren said. “They don’t throw far, they just come back to us. They also have a big running back, a good quarterback.”