:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/6IOER56DQZECPIOYSH6UZWBFHE.jpg)
Evan Brown and Oswego, like every other football team in Illinois, was hungry to get back on the field Friday.
The Panthers’ defense played like it.
Oswego forced four turnovers in shutting out Plainfield South 24-0 in Friday’s season opener, meeting head coach Brian Cooney’s target.
Joey Lumino and Thomas Jagoda had interceptions, and Jagoda recovered a fumble that Kadin Green caused. Matt Egly recovered a fumble that Anthony Cikauskas forced.
“He likes to stick to three or more turnovers, that’s the goal,” said Brown, Oswego’s senior linebacker. “If we can hit our defensive goals he likes our chances and obviously turnovers help. They can completely change a ballgame.”
It turns out, Oswego’s coaching staff has set incentives for forcing turnovers to promote winning football – and meet players’ hunger needs. Anybody that gets a turnover, gets a “ballhawk” award,” and with it a T-shirt is presented at practice.
An intentional strip is even juicier, dedicated a “burrito,” with anybody collecting a burrito taking home a Chipotle gift card for himself.
“It’s a fun little award system,” said Brown, noting “a burrito never hurt.”
Unfortunately, there will be no playoffs this year, when the payoff – and the burritos – double. Cooney recalled a playoff game a few years ago, when Julian Bell punched a ball loose, causing a turnover and cashing in.
“It’s drilled in practice, and it’s a mentality,” Cooney said. “We do practice ball security defense. Creating turnovers is something you have to practice and you have to project the willingness, and know when is the time to punch at the ball and when it’s a good time to secure the ballcarrier.”
Brown did plenty of the latter Friday, with 14 tackles defensively and a 33-yard touchdown run on offense. He also made one spectacular play from his outside linebacker position that won’t show up on the box score.
The Plainfield quarterback threw a post route, and when the ball was released Brown tracked it and did a full-on sprint. While teammate Joey DeMarco broke up the pass, Brown came about six inches away from intercepting it.
“It was one of the best hustle plays you’ll ever see,” Cooney said. “He is just full tilt. He doesn’t know any other way to play. That’s the intensity he plays with.”
Brown, who also sports a 4.6 GPA and has designs to go into engineering, said that’s just the way he was drilled.
“That’s something our coach emphasizes a ton, is you never know what will happen down the field,” Brown said. “As soon as you see the ball thrown, you turn and run. No questions asked.”
Yorkville sophomores shine under the lights
Contributions to Yorkville’s 26-14 win over Plainfield Central last Friday came from up and down the roster – including some of the youngest Foxes.
Sophomores Jake Davies, Blake Kersting, Sam Tholen and Andrew Laurich all made their presence felt under the varsity lights in Plainfield.
Tholen, who plays center, was limited to 10 practices before the season opener as he was completing basketball season.
“Not only is he a sophomore, playing a very important position, but he did it with very limited practice time,” Yorkville coach Dan McGuire said. “We felt he did a very good job offensively. That’s a lot of pressure for a kid to do that after just 10 days of practice.”
Laurich and Davies, the little brother of senior quarterback Luke Davies who McGuire noted is probably the bigger brother in size, played the whole game at defensive end. Kersting, at safety, had an interception in the game’s final minutes to preserve the win.
“Our safeties have to do a lot of communication and he’s done a good job of grasping what we want to do,” McGuire said of Kersting. “His dad is a coach at Oswego, you can tell he has a high football IQ, that was a big pick he had at the end.”
He’s not a sophomore, but junior defensive back Malachi Jones was another underclassmen who had a strong start. Jones had three passes defensed, two tackles, a forced fumble, interception and a fumble recovery on a muffed punt.
Jones and Yorkville senior running back Dougie Burson and lineman Jarek Slavin all were recognized as part of Friday Night Drive’s Team of the Week announced Tuesday.
“I was impressed with how Malachi handled the whole situation, the whole atmosphere,” McGuire said. “It didn’t feel like the game was too big for him. He made some really big plays for us.”
Sandwich soph Seven Tornga makes strong debut
Sandwich was its own worst enemy this past Saturday in its 26-22 season-opening loss to Aurora Central Catholic. The Indians lost two fumbles, had two interceptions and committed 11 penalties for 80 yards – the last one, an illegal block in the back, when Sandwich was driving for the go-ahead score in the final minute.
“We made too many mistakes, things we got to correct,” Sandwich coach Kris Cassie said. “All of our wounds were self inflicted. Too many holding penalties, defensive line jumping offsides, miscues like that. You just can’t win in a varsity football game like that.”
Sandwich dug itself a quick 14-0 hole, but came back to tie in the second quarter on Seven Tornga’s 5-yard touchdown run and Evan Wilson’s 2-yard TD run. The teams traded three touchdowns from there, Tornga giving Sandwich its last lead, 22-20, with a 5-yard TD run in the fourth quarter before Aurora Central came back with its own TD.
Tornga, a sophomore who Cassie raved about in the preseason, naming him a team captain, ran for 139 yards on 21 carries and two TDs in his varsity debut. James Coleman ran for 103 yards on 10 carries.
“Seven did a nice job from the fullback spot, James Coleman and Evan Wilson both ran the ball hard and looked good,” Cassie said. “Offensively, we looked solid, it’s just the penalties set us back. We were able to move the ball consistently.”
Hitting the road...for a home game
Oswego will become well-accustomed to the Plainfield North turf the next two weeks.
The Panthers play at Plainfield North this week, as scheduled, and then will be back there for Week 3 to host West Aurora. Cooney said that the watering system at Ken Pickerill Stadium had to be pulled out and reinstalled last fall, and the field needed to recrowned. Oswego hopes to be able to play its other scheduled home game of the spring, Week 5 against Yorkville, at its home stadium.