Herald-News Football Notebook: Lockport enduring despite litany of injuries; Reed-Custer rolling up points

Lockport already has dealt with its fair share of injuries this season, and it kept adding to the list during Friday night’s narrow win over Bradley-Bourbonnais..

Those injuries, however, have led to other players getting opportunities they may not have otherwise had.

“We had some fresh kids in there, and some of them may have been second-stringers,” Lockport coach George Czart said. “But they came to play hard and played with pride.”

It also had the Porters adapting to what was coming at them on the fly.

“[Bradley-Bourbonnais] came out in something way different than we expected, and all the plays we practiced weren’t there, so we had to go back to our old script,” Lockport tight end Hyatt Timosciek said. “We had to go back to some plays that we’re not really used to, and some of the guys didn’t really know it all, so we had to help them out.”

Lockport also had endured something of a quarterback rotation because of injury. Brady Pfeiffer started the season opener against Joliet West, played well but suffered an injury and gave way to Drew Gallagher, who turned in a solid performance against Metea Valley before returning the reins to the now-healthy Pfeiffer before the Bradley game.

Pfeiffer responded with another good game, and his lead receiver, Timosciek, paid both the quarterbacks a high compliment after the game.

“It was nice to have [Pfeiffer] back, but to be honest with you I couldn’t tell the difference,” Timosciek said with a laugh.

Even when injuries weren’t the root cause of an issue, Czart didn’t hesitate to shake things up with his roster. With his secondary not performing as he’d hoped, Czart made changes at halftime and inserted reserve Danny Stevens. Just minutes after doing so, Stevens picked off a pass and ran it back for a score.

It sparked what to that point had been something of a lethargic effort from the Porters.

“We made a change-up and moved our free safety to strong and put [Stevens] in there,” Czart said. “He does a great job in practice every day, so why not give him a chance?”

No scoring shortage

Through three games, Reed-Custer has scored 186 points.

It is one point short of the best scoring total in the state, a mark set by Chatham Glenwood.

Obviously, it seems unlikely that the Comets can continue that epic pace, but they already are at the fringes of the school record book for scoring only three games in.

Reed-Custer began its football program in 1978. With the current total, the Comets already are in 10th place for points scored in a season, even if they somehow stopped scoring points at all.

Last year’s breakout performance ended with Reed-Custer setting the school’s all-time single season scoring record of 503 points. But there’s plenty of room for this bunch of Reed-Custer scoring phenoms to quickly climb the list.

In order, the single-season scoring chart reads as follows: 1) 503 points (2021), 2) 347 points (2006), 3) 288 points (1986), 4) 268 points (2008) and 5) 257 points (1998).

SPC won’t continue Thursday games

If you’ve been enjoying the Southwest Prairie Conference’s extension of the high school football weekend to Thursday nights, you’d better get your fill this weekend.

The SPC originally agreed to playing two weeks of crossover games [last week and this week] on Thursday to help assist with the growing officiating issues. But it recently learned the conference would make this only a one-year addendum to the schedules, and it will return to a more normal slate next season.

This was expected to be a preemptive move that multiple conferences would do sooner rather than later. By agreeing to go first, they could be assured of getting officials later in the season because of the initial agreement to help. But while there has been an increase in Thursday games statewide, the SPC didn’t want to be alone in upsetting its weekly calendars if others weren’t also making some sacrifices.

After all 12 teams were in action on Thursday last week, only 10 of the 12 SPC schools will play Thursday this week. Plainfield Central and Minooka will play Friday, as originally scheduled, as Minooka’s homecoming game is on tap.