The Times Week 3 football notebook: Longtime rivalries continued, respect shown and a surprise visit

More from sidelines across The Times coverage area in our Week 3 football notebook.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The respect the Seneca and Marquette football programs have for each other was evident in the teams Chicagoland Prairie Conference clash Friday in Ottawa, a 48-13 Seneca victory, but one incident stood out.

On one of the game’s final plays, Marquette’s Jaxsen Higgins was blocking on a short run when he was overcome by a huge cramp in both of his legs. He fell to the ground, flat on his back, unable to even roll to his side.

While trainers Chris Jackson of Seneca and Marquette’s Brandi Peters raced to him, Seneca safety Gunnar Varland immediately stepped up, lifting Higgins’ legs to stretch his hamstrings until help arrived. The Irish junior stayed with Higgins while he was down, then helped him up and supported him on his hobble to the sidelines before returning to the Seneca side.

After battling each other hard all night – Varland finished with a team-best 10 tackles, while Higgins had four carries for 41 yards and a TD – the two exemplified the admiration the rivals have for one another on the gridiron.

Bright spots in lopsided loss

Positives were understandably few and far between for the Streator Bulldogs during Friday’s 56-6 Illinois Central Eight Conference home loss to powerhouse Coal City. But there still were a few.

Senior running back Jordan Lukes averaged just less than 5 yards per carry, with 54 yards on 11 attempts. Through three weeks he sits at 350 yards and is on pace for a 1,000-yard season. Senior quarterback Isaiah Weibel threw for a varsity career-best 133 yards on 16-of-31 passing with one touchdown and one interception. Another senior, Tristan Finley, and sophomore Sharonn Morton emerged as solid targets in the passing game behind Matt Williamson and Jake Hagie, and defensively Riley Stevens and Jorrick Black recorded solo tackles for loss.

Streator has another of the ICE’s top teams on tap Friday, visiting 3-0 Manteno.

Supporting the ‘other football’

The Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland football team switched to an early-morning practice schedule last Thursday. Unlike the Falcons’ summer sunrise practices, however, this had nothing to do with the heat.

Forty members of the FCW football program surprised their placekicker, senior Woodland student Connor Decker – who’s also a midfielder on the Streator boys soccer team that co-ops with Woodland – at the Bulldogs’ home match against Plano at the Bulldogs’ new James Street complex. The Falcons, dressed in black FCW t-shirts, cheered, chanted and sang throughout a close 3-2 loss for the Bulldogs.

Season-saving win for Sandwich?

Any win in the War on 34 Rivalry feels like a big one. Friday’s 113th edition, a 41-16 victory over Plano for previously winless Sandwich, however, might have been a season saver for the Indians.

Now 1-2, Sandwich still has four games over the next six weeks against teams that hold winning records, starting with a visit to 2-1 Johnsburg this Friday and also including games against undefeated Woodstock North in Week 8.

A surprise Class 4A playoff qualifier in 2023, don’t be surprised if the win over Plano propels the Indians to make it back-to-back trips to the postseason.

Rivalry games galore

The past couple of weeks have featured the continuation of three of the six oldest high school football rivalries in the state.

The Week 2 schedule featured the 103rd meeting between Ottawa and Streator, which played each other for the first time in 1894. Only Hyde Park/Englewood (first played in 1889, rivalry ended in 2003) and West Aurora and East Aurora (initial game in 1893, haven’t played since 2018, but will meet in Week 8 this season), are older than the Pirates and Bulldogs.

This past Friday Ottawa and La Salle-Peru, which began their series in 1898, battled on the gridiron for the 125th time, while Sandwich and Plano, who first met in 1897, lined up across each other for the 113th matchup. Rounding out the six rivalries would be the downstate “Cola Wars” between Tuscola and Arcola, who first played in 1896 and last played in 2022.

The oldest high school rivalry in the nation is also alive and well in Connecticut as Norwich Free Academy and New London, which first clashed in 1875, will play for the 162nd time in their annual Thanksgiving Day game later this fall. The record holder for the most meetings goes to Punahou and Kamehameha in Hawaii, who first played in 1903 and just played for the 195th time this past Saturday.