The Times Week 2 Football Notebook: FCW hosts special night, Marquette tough in the trenches down south

Here’s more from around the area’s sidelines last weekend in The Times Week 2 Football Notebook:

FCW honors troops, wins in style

The Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland Falcons had a different look Friday night during their 38-8 Flanagan-Cornell homecoming win over Peoria Heights.

To honor the military, FCW donned camouflage uniforms borrowed from the Illinois Army National Guard, with local recruiter Sgt. Kody Montoya on the Falcons’ sideline all game following the action.

“I’d seen teams that do this and called a couple years ago, and [this year] I called our National Guard recruiter and reserved these this past summer for this date,” FCW coach Todd Reed said. “I saw our home games on the schedule, and I said, ‘I’d like to have the National Guard jerseys again, our kids really liked that,’ and they sent a recruiter out to us to talk.”

On a busy night that also included the special jerseys, a surprise downpour of rain pregame, homecoming festivities, the honoring of Flanagan’s 1974 Class 1A state championship football team and FCW ultimately holding onto the Guards Game traveling trophy, it also allowed the Falcons to thank Montoya and honor a couple of servicemen from their own ranks.

“It’s just a fun night,” Reed said. “We get to honor the military veterans, and it was truly a special tonight, because we had two former players – Jase Torrez [U.S. Air Force] and Ethan Kane [U.S. Marine Corps] – who were freshmen for me my first year coaching. So being able to take them out to the coin toss with me and the two captains and Sgt. Montoya was pretty special for how much they mean to us, mean to our program and how much we appreciate and thank them for their service.”

Marquette front 4 shining

A good part of the reason for Marquette Academy’s 41-6 domination of Madison came in the trenches, where the Crusaders’ defensive line was able to keep Trojans quarterback Dallas Gardner running for his life most of the game.

Led by the rotation of starters – junior Marcus Baker, senior Sam Mitre, senior Austin Ferracuti and freshman Blayden Cassel, plus seniors Tommy Walsh and Nolan DeMink and sophomore Alex Schaefer – the MA front line stuffed the run all night, recording five sacks, 10 tackles for loss and allowing only 1 rushing yard on 15 carries.

That’s a marked improvement over the respectable effort the previous week against Aurora Christian, when the Cru gave up 97 yards on 25 tries. However, 63 of those yards came on one carry, a TD run by Chris Fielding.

Take away that one run, and the Crusaders have allowed only 35 yards rushing on 39 attempts.

That should make for an interesting Week 3 matchup when Marquette hosts a Seneca team averaging 365 rushing yards per game.

Seneca streak hits 21

With its 40-0 blanking of Lisle at home Friday, the Seneca Fighting Irish have won 21 consecutive regular-season games. The Irish, who have put together back-to-back 9-0 regular seasons, last were defeated in a regular-season game in Week 7 of the fall 2021 season, a 32-26 loss to Momence while still members of the Vermilion Valley Football Alliance.

Seneca’s streak will be in jeopardy Friday when the Fighting Irish visit perennial Class 1A powerhouse Marquette at Gould Stadium.

Ottawa gets a break before the break

Ottawa led by a touchdown and was driving deep into Streator territory with just under five minutes to play in the opening half of Friday’s game at Streator’s Doug Dieken Stadium. A holding penalty on the Pirates pushed them back to the Bulldogs’ 20 on first-and-goal, but the very next play “tipped” the scales.

Ottawa quarterback Mark Munson took the shotgun snap and rolled to his left and floated a pass away just before three Streator pass rushers reached him. The ball was first tipped by a leaping Bulldogs defender, then through the hands of another. It finally found its way into the grasp of Pirates wideout Andrew Vercolio standing just inside the end zone to give the Pirates a 14-0 lead at halftime in a 34-7 win in the 103rd meeting between the two programs

Streator’s Lukes off and running

Streator senior running back Jordan Lukes is off to a great start to the season. Lukes followed up a 10-carry, 150-yard rushing effort in a Week 1 win over Decatur Eisenhower with 146 yards on 20 carries and the Bulldogs’ lone touchdown against longtime rival Ottawa on Friday.

The opening two-game total of 296 yards puts the hard-running Lukes, who had six runs of 10 or more yards and a long of 26 against the Pirates, well on pace to become the first Streator player to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season since it was accomplished by Nick Harcar (1,281) in 2014.