It’s five o’clock Saturday evening, Nov. 10, and already dark outside as I sit to write. All of this means something, especially since I had no football team or volleyball squad to go and watch today.
It means autumn sports are done. It means we now have a basketball tab to put out. A four-month stretch of cold, dark highways, brightly lit gymnasiums, irritating scoreboard buzzers and hospitality-room dinners now awaits me. I hope some surprising stories, thrilling games and some honest excitement are also coming my way. But I won’t know until we all turn the page.
Before we do, let me put a cap on our 2007 fall sports season with this hastily conceived, off-the-cuff summation of what we learned from August to November.
JACKSONVILLE HIGH FOOTBALL
In the end, this year’s football Crimsons did pretty much what I expected them to do. I thought back in August they could go 6-3 at best, and they were an overtime touchdown away from doing it.
I consider it head coach Mark Grounds’ most resourceful coaching performance. He installed a new spread offense which, I believe, wrung two more victories out of a young team consisting of 3-6 talent. The defense was atrocious. The running game, inconsistent. But Grounds shifted the weight onto two known playmakers (QB Blake Schnitker and LB/FB Jacob Mills) and along the way, found a couple more in WR/RB Kendall Phelps and WR Bryce Heaton. All of these guys, and a good number of others, will return next year. If the defense performs better, the Crimsons will easily be at least a 7-2 team in 2008.
ILLINOIS COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Considering the dizzyingly high expectations engendered by the most talented, most experienced group of returning players the hilltop has had in many years, the Blueboys’ 4-6 finish can only be considered a huge bust. Right?
Well, not so fast.
IC lost fourth-year starting quarterback Pete Jennings for good at midseason, lost HIS backup Mitch Niekamp two weeks later, and spent most of the fall trying to find a go-to running back to complement a stout offensive line and the Midwest Conference’s best corps of wide receivers. Injuries on defense, especially to firebrand linebacker Ricky Padilla, didn’t help, either, and the Blueboys went into a swoon in the middle portion of their schedule.
But give head coach Aaron Keen credit. Recent IC squads have absolutely tanked at the end of the season against MWC heavyweights Monmouth and St. Norbert. Not this team. The Blueboys lost both games, but despite all their injuries, took the Fighting Scots into overtime at Monmouth in a 26-23 loss; and nearly whipped playoff-bound St. Norbert 31-24 in their season finale at England Field.
It suggests that Keen has finally instilled some good old-fashioned grit into a program that has tried to overwhelm foes with its talented passing attack the past few years. There’s a lot of talent and experience graduating off this team, but IC can build next year upon the character of toughness it ended this season with.
THE WEAKENING WIVC
Face it, fans. The Western Illinois Valley Conference just isn’t what it used to be. This year’s Class 1A playoffs proved it. The league’s two undefeated teams, Routt (the North champion) and Greenfield-Northwestern (South champs) struggled in opening-round wins against middling squads from the Prairie State Conference, and both got taken out by an Arcola team that finished its regular season at 7-2, and had not even played a team with a better record than 7-2. Triopia lost only to Routt (22-20) in the regular season, but got flattened by Tuscola, 62-8, in this year’s second round. As recently as five years ago, the WIVC was still being referred to as one of the state’s toughest small-school football leagues. Right now, it looks like one of the weakest.
THE RISING WIVC
But then there’s volleyball, and this is where the WIVC is beginning to establish itself, as Routt, Greenfield and A-C Central/Virginia are now routinely putting strong teams on the floor. In the newfangled four-class system, both Routt and Greenfield reached the Class 1A Elite Eight this year, and both pushed traditional powerhouses through three games before bowing out.
Mount Pulaski, which needed three games to get past Routt on Monday, won the Class 1A state title, defeating both Deer Creek-Mackinaw and Rockford Keith School in two-game matches. Albion Edwards County needed a late push in game three to overcome Greenfield on Monday, but finished third in 1A.
THE REST
A final congratulations goes out to Jacksonville High cross country runners Sam Lee and Tyson Kinsley for reaching the state meet in Peoria. In a year when JHS volleyball bottomed out, when soccer merely whelmed instead of overwhelming us, and the golf team, despite a strong regular season, came up way short at its annual Central State Eight meet, Jacksonville’s boys’ cross country team picked up the slack and came very close to qualifying its entire squad for state.
