High school football: Richmond-Burton defense improved, showing ‘energy’

Richmond-Burton regarded its performance against Johnsburg on Sept. 9 as unacceptable.

R-B might not have beaten the mighty Skyhawks if they had played five more times, but earning only one first down while getting steamrolled, 53-0, was not who the Rockets wanted to be.

So they did something about it.

The captains met with their segments, giving them talks about how they could get better. The players spent extra time on the field after the coaches had dismissed them, working on drills and techniques.

They rebounded with a predictable 35-7 win at Burlington Central, then they shocked the Kishwaukee River Conference with a 31-20 upset of Woodstock North last week that revived R-B’s season. The Rockets (3-2 overall, 2-1 KRC) are feeling much better as they visit Harvard (1-4, 0-3) at 7 p.m. Friday at Dan Horne Field.

“We work on things we needed to work on from the past week,” running back-linebacker Shane Byrne said. “The captains lead us. It’s definitely fun. We’ve been growing in the aspects that we needed to. Putting in the extra time and effort is definitely helping.”

Woodstock North (4-1, 2-1) had vaulted to No. 6 in The Associated Press Class 5A poll last week after averaging 50.3 points and 499.3 yards a game. R-B held the Thunder to 227 total yards and two of North’s scores came on long kickoff-return touchdowns.

“It was huge, honestly,” Rockets offensive tackle-defensive end Dalton Wagner said. “We came back off the BC win with a little energy, and now with the Woodstock North win, we have a lot of energy. We shut them down and forced them to be impatient, and we capitalized on a lot of what we were taught. We have the coaches to thank for that. We drilled it and drilled it and drilled it, and it paid off Friday night.”

R-B has some tough games ahead, with state-ranked Genoa-Kingston (5-0) and Marengo (4-1), then finishing with Woodstock (3-2). But the Rockets found who they thought they were; they even picked up points this week in the Class 4A poll.

“We needed to put one together,” Rockets coach Pat Elder said. “We still have some work to do in the special teams area, but this was easily the best we played offensively and defensively. Our kids responded well.”

Elder lauded R-B’s defense for its discipline against North’s triple-option and the way each player did his job.

“It was a really big confidence booster, and we just showed how great our defense can be,” quarterback-linebacker Brady Gibson said. “Before, our tackling wasn’t very good. We stay late after practice and we work on tackling, driving our feet and wrapping up. We’ve been doing our job and trusting the guy next to us to do his job.”

Elder appreciates the way his players have kept focus on the task at hand, even when they were off to a shaky 1-2 start and not playing well.

“Offensively and defensively, we’ve been pretty crisp each of the last two weeks,” Elder said. “We had two big breakdowns in special teams. Human nature is to focus on the negative, but we had three great plays on special teams that also had a huge impact and helped with field position. If we can add that final piece together (on special teams), we think we’ll start to become the team we hope to be.”

The Rockets know there is still much work to do.

“We’re definitely getting there,” Byrne said. “It’s nice to see that. We can keep growing and keep getting better every game.”