Returning 3A quarterfinalist Princeton, 6A semifinalist Washington team up for practice

PRINCETON – For a summer practice session, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Last year’s Class 3A quarterfinalist Princeton welcomed Class 6A semifinalist Washington for a controlled practice/scrimmage Thursday morning at Little Siberia.

Both teams welcomed the opportunity to run plays against other defenses, albeit in a controlled, nontackle setting.

“Love getting together with Washington. Coach [Todd] Stevens is a great friend of mine. I think he does a fantastic job with his kids,” Tiger coach Ryan Pearson said. “And I tell you what, the competition they give our kids is second to none. And I was really impressed with our todays. I really felt our kids did not back down.

“We told them they’re a 6A semifinalist. They lost to East St. Louis last year. And I thought we aggressively handled our own. We got a few technique things we have to shore up. As a coach, when it’s technique, we can handle that because we can fix that in practice. But the aggressiveness was there. We loved it. It was awesome.”

It was a homecoming for Stevens, who was a member of Princeton’s 1989 state runner-up team. He was named as Washington’s associate head coach last year and took over as head coach for longtime coach Darrell Crouch, who retired last year.

“Kind of waited 29 years to do something like this. I knew when I was at Washington, our schedules never aligned to see each other, so it is kind of nice to take it all in,” Stevens said.

“When we’re done with our games on Fridays the first thing I do is check the paper or ask the other coaches, ‘How’d the Tigers do?’” he said. “It’s still a place I come back regularly. Some times I’ll just come and drive around town and take a look at some of the old haunts and come on home. This place is still special for me.”

Stevens said it was good for the Panthers to make the trip to Princeton after hosting the Tigers last summer.

“We always want to go after guys that will get after it and these guys always get after it. They’re very well coached, well disciplined. We learned that last year,” he said. “We had had a semifinal team and they had a quarterfinal team and it was a pretty good battle at our place. So we expected nothing different when we came here today.

“Definitely get some good film (via drone) against some good athletes and go back to the drawing board Monday and try to fix things, because we’re running out of time.”

Both coaches wanted their team to play aggressive, but there was a fine line when it came to contact in the summer preseason setting.

“There’s a fine line. Because you’re wanting your kids to be aggressive, but at the same time, you don’t want so aggressive that kids are being taken down,” Pearson said. “We wanted to make sure we got the work that we needed. Washington got the work they needed. But yet we wanted to come out healthy and that’s the No. 1 thing.”

Stevens said it was a little hard at the start of practice to make sure the players didn’t cross that line.

“Guys we’re both pretty excited on both sides of the ball,” he said. “We want guys to play intense and play to the whistle. Sometimes these combined practices can get a little dicey, but I thought guys controlled themselves pretty well. Definitely don’t want to lose a guy at this time of the year, but you still want them to play physical.

“There is that fine line where you’re getting after it and stopping when you’re supposed to and hitting high instead of low.”

Pearson and Stevens have a connection back to Pearson’s days at Canton going up against Washington in the Mid-Illini Conference. When Pearson asked Stevens about his hometown school when the Tigers’ job opened in 2017, Stevens told him if he took the Princeton job he would never want to leave.

“I’ll be one thousand percent honest. If it wasn’t for Todd Stevens, I would probably not be here,” Pearson said. “I respect Todd that much. He’s like, ‘I’m a Princeton grad. I love Princeton.’ He thought I did remarkable things at Canton, but he’s like, ‘Man, they need you in Princeton.’”

Pearson has had his opportunities, but he’s made Princeton his home.

“I love this community. The biggest thing for me is family and this is a fantastic place to raise my kids. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”