Kendall County Football Notebook: Slimmed down lineman Braydon Grabavoy plays huge part in Oswego East’s biggest win ever

Braydon Grabavoy and Tyson LeBlanc felt the collective embrace of the Oswego East community last Friday after the biggest win in school history.

Grabavoy, a senior lineman, said he received texts and phone calls from plenty of old teammates, former coaches and family members after the Wolves’ 14-7 win over Oswego.

LeBlanc, Oswego East’s head coach, had his phone blowing up with “way too many texts to count, probably close to 70″ from coaches around the area, former players and family friends after the Wolves ended 15 years of futility with their first win in the crosstown rivalry.

When the team arrived back at Oswego East last Friday, there was a crowd of close to 200 students waiting for them.

“That was cool, great for the guys, but I’ll be honest, not a lot of time to enjoy it. It’s on to the next in this abbreviated season,” said LeBlanc, who was up at 9 a.m. the next morning looking at film of Plainfield North. “We’ll get a little time to enjoy it but it really is on to the next game.”

LeBlanc, in his ninth season as Wolves’ coach, does understand well the meaning of the game around the community.

“So much respect for the Oswego program. In a community like this they cast a big shadow,” LeBlanc said. “To finally step out of that shadow a little bit feels good.”

Defense was a huge story of Oswego East’s win, forcing four turnovers on downs and two turnovers, and two-way starter Grabavoy is a big reason for that.

“Any time you play a three-man front you have to be solid up the middle of the field,” LeBlanc said. “What he’s able to do, it’s not just about making plays, it’s making guys go where they don’t want to go. He’s been super solid and not only that but he’s doing it on both sides of the ball. Braydon’s playmaking has come in key situations, fourth down, third down, red zone is where his play stands out. You expect linebackers to make plays. You don’t expect zero technique nose guards to make the plays Braydon has.”

A huge reason for that is the offseason conditioning work Grabavoy put in. Eating right, not missing a day in the weight room, Grabavoy went from 275 pounds as a junior to around 240 now.

“I didn’t lose any strength when it came to lifting, all the maxes stayed the same, still had the same muscle strength. I felt like I added a lot of speed by losing that unnecessary weight,” Grabavoy said. “I have not missed a day in the weight room in a big minute. I fell in love with lifting and it really showed with my body and the progress and gains I’ve made.”

While other football players focus on building mass, and adding weight, Grabavoy was motivated by watching NFL players like Aaron Donald and Khalil Mack to go the opposite route.

“You see people like Aaron Donald, Khalil Mack, they don’t need to play at 300 pounds to do what they do,” Grabavoy said. “I started to take that route and went hard during Covid.”

Sandwich encouraged from showing at Rochelle:

Sandwich remains winless on the season through four weeks – but Indians’ coach Kris Cassie was encouraged by the latest showing. The Indians shut out Rochelle for three quarters, and led 12-0 in the fourth quarter of an eventual 14-12 loss last Friday.

“I know it was a loss but we were encouraged; a lot of things came together,” Cassie said. “We just have to learn how to finish. I think guys are finding their footing and playing with more confidence.”

Cassie continues to rave about the performance of sophomore Seven Tornga.

Tornga scored both of Sandwich’s touchdowns at Rochelle, had two sacks defensively and was the Indians’ leading tackler.

“Seven really stepped up and played lights out. That young man was all over the field,” Cassie said. “We are a young team, we have nine seniors, it’s guys who have not seen a lot of varsity action. Every game is an opportunity to play at this level and we started to see some growth.”

Oswego back home for Senior Night

When Oswego hosts Yorkville Friday night, it will be a special night for the Panthers’ seniors. It’s Senior Night, Oswego’s last home game – and the first and last time this season they’ll play on their home field of Ken Pickerill Stadium.

The watering system at Oswego’s home field had to be pulled out and reinstalled last fall, and the field needed to be recrowned. Oswego played West Aurora at Plainfield North Week 3 in what would have normally been a home game, but all systems appear to be go for Friday.

“That’s the plan. We haven’t touched it,” Oswego coach Brian Cooney said. “I walked on it about two weeks ago but they’ve done more work since. When the tore it out they had to overseed everything and some of the spots didn’t come up. I touched it with [Oswego athletic director] Darren [Howard] on Monday and we’re playing on it.”

Cooney for one is glad for the opportunity for his seniors especially.

“This has been a date circled on the calendar, one last shot for our seniors, a home game,” Cooney said. “Nothing about this season is normal except the playing, not much more than that has been normal, but if we can simulate a certain level of normalcy with our seniors we ow it to them.”

Oswego’s quarterback situation

One Oswego senior whose status is uncertain for the last home game is quarterback Cole Pradel, who missed his second game last Friday with an unspecified knee injury suffered against Plainfield North Week 2. Cooney said Pradel’s status for this week is uncertain, but they should find out more after Pradel’s doctor’s appointments this week.

In his second start, and third game, junior quarterback Julian Toma acquitted himself fairly well, going 13-for-29 for 160 yards with a TD to Nick Hampton, although Toma was intercepted twice. Oswego also brought up sophomore quarterback Cruz Ibarra for the West Aurora game. Toma and Ibarra would figure to be competing for the job this fall.

“Both are talented athletes, they each do things differently, two guys that we know can do it. It will be some good competition, that’s for sure,” Cooney said. “Julian last Friday, tense game, pressure on both sides, I thought Julian did a good job managing the game and I felt he made some impressive throws.”

Yorkville ready to move forward

Yorkville’s 48-6 loss to Minooka last Friday is surely one the Foxes will want to forget, a very uncharacteristic outcome in recent seasons. The Foxes gave up two special teams touchdowns, and had another one that turned into a touchdown. But Yorkville coach Dan McGuire has no doubt that his kids can and will put it behind them.

“These kids are a resilient group,” McGuire said. “Minooka is a great team, we didn’t do ourselves any favors, but we have proven we can do things that we didn’t do well. It’s not like it was our first game and we don’t know what we have.”

McGuire knows it doesn’t get any easy against Oswego, one of those programs that McGuire has said “it seems like the names change but they have the same kind of kids.”

“They don’t do 30,000 different things, but they’re good at what they do,” McGuire said. “They’re not trying to reinvent themselves every week, they’re receivers are athletic and present a lot of challenges but as I mentioned our kids are resilient. We’ve competed against good teams up to this point, we are capable of playing together.”