Soltow shoulders load for Polo’s run to semifinals

The Polo Marcos started the 2022 season with a pair of all-state running backs returning to the backfield and a lot of question marks at the other positions.

They ended the season with one main ball-carrier and a lot of momentum heading into next fall.

The constant through it all was junior Brock Soltow, who excelled while sharing the load with Avery Grenoble for the regular season, then shouldered the load in a run to the Illinois 8-Man Football Association semifinals after Grenoble was lost to a knee injury the night before the first-round playoff game.

The numbers Soltow put up were staggering: 246 rushes, 2,407 yards and 39 touchdowns, the most in the area in all three categories. Even when you break those numbers down, it’s equally impressive: 9.8 yards per carry and a touchdown every 6.3 carries, he averaged 200.6 yards and 3.25 touchdowns per game as the Marcos went 9-3 and came within six seconds of a third straight I8FA state title-game berth.

He was tops in the area in rushing by 30 carries, 800 yards and five touchdowns, and now has 3,895 yards in his career. He also had 79 tackles – including 49 solo – with seven tackles for loss, two sacks and seven interceptions from his outside linebacker spot to earn I8FA all-state honors for the second straight season.

But it was his growth on both sides of the ball, both as a player and a leader, that he showed during a position change and being the main target for opposing defenses that also helped him earn 2022 Sauk Valley Media Player of the Year honors.

•••

The beginning of the season was full of uncertainty for the Marcos. Bringing back a pair of 1,400-yard rushers in Grenoble and Soltow is a luxury most teams don’t have, but putting them behind an inexperienced, untested offensive line was a big question mark.

But as the season wore on, the line made huge strides, and Soltow was the one who benefitted from it the most.

“It was awesome watching us all grow together as a team, in the weight room, on the practice field, everything, with the offensive line, all of us talking together,” Soltow said. “Communication was the biggest thing week by week with us. We were having troubles the first week, and we just kept not talking on the line and it messed us up. After we started figuring it out, it looked pretty good for all of us.”

After a 2-2 start – with losses to area rivals Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio and Milledgeville – things turned around, and it was a change in formation that seemed to spark it.

After struggling to move the ball in Week 4 against the Missiles, Polo came out in the Wildcat formation in the second half, with Soltow taking the direct shotgun snap from the center and either keeping the ball or handing it off to Grenoble. It allowed quarterback Cayden Webster to act as an extra blocker, and put the ball in the hands of the two most experienced players on every play.

“I was a little nervous when we started that formation, because we really didn’t practice on it a lot until the week after that game. At halftime, they said we were going to switch it and try it out, and I was a bit nervous,” Soltow said. “But when I got onto the field, my nerves just went away. I knew we had to play how we always played, so I liked it a lot, and enjoyed it – and that was our main offense starting the next week.”

It was also the week where, after a tough loss in a game the Marcos led at halftime, Soltow had his first inkling that this team might have something special in them the rest of the season.

“I thought after Week 4, that Milledgeville game, when we had the lead at halftime and then we just lost it all right away after half, I knew we were all going to be pissed off about that game, because that’s our biggest rival and we all wanted to go in and destroy them, but that didn’t happen,” he said. “Then that next week, all of our mindsets were to make up for that. In the weight room, the practice field, we didn’t care about anything else; it was football no matter what, and I knew after that week we had a good chance of going to state again.”

Coach Ted Alston also pointed to the Milledgeville loss as the turning point for Polo. The coaching staff made Soltow’s move to quarterback permanent, putting Webster in more of a halfback position, and then started to see the improvement as the guys in the trenches gained experience – and confidence.

He pointed to Soltow’s growth in his new position over the next few weeks – he threw for 202 yards and four touchdowns on the season – as mirroring the rest of the team.

“At the beginning of the year, we were struggling a little bit. We just didn’t have much continuity offensively, and Brock was struggling a little bit, Avery was struggling a little bit, we were all kind of struggling a little bit,” Alston said. “But when we moved him there … it was the Milledgeville game that we kind of realized it was the way to go. The coaches on the way home said, ‘I think this is the direction we have to go permanently.’ From there, he just kept getting a little better at it each week. His success coincided with the improvement up front and on defense, so it kind of all just jelled together, with was nice.”

•••

As with most offensive backs, Soltow can’t give his teammates enough credit for his success. Whether talking about his running mate Grenoble, or the offensive line that grew up in leaps and bounds this season, he knows how much of a team game he’s playing every week.

Early in the season, Grenoble was one of the reasons why Soltow was gaining so many yards. With defenses keying on the senior who specialized on running inside, Soltow was able to find some space on the outside.

“I had a sense that they were all going to key on Avery, because of how good he was last year. They wanted to stop the middle run, because that’s what we did really well last year with Avery,” Soltow said. “This year, they started out keying on Avery, and we got the outside runs, and then we added our H-right sweep, and it started getting us outside and allowed us to make cuts to open field The line was always there to be on the back cuts, and we were perfect.”

The two are as close as a running back tandem can be, and that relationship is a big reason why both cheer on the other’s success more than their own.

“It was great being back there with him. I had a blast with him back there last year and this year,” Soltow said, a sentiment Grenoble echoed. “Me and him have a good connection together everyday. We’re always talking about football, no matter what: how the season went last year, how the season went this year. It’s always fun to be with him on the field, in practice, in school.”

Both backs were effusive in their praise of the guys up front, and the improvement of that unit week to week. A part of the offense that was a worry at the start of the season turned into a major confidence-booster by the end.

“That line was huge for us. When we lost Logan Nelson to a knee injury, I got a little worried. But we had Jacob Monaco jump up in a big spot for us, and he came in clutch and was a big help to us,” Soltow said. “Everybody else – Waylon Harris, Alex Albano, Nathan Yingling and Landen Brooks – we all didn’t know how we were going to be at the start of the season, and when we all started clicking together, that O-line was perfect on everything. I wouldn’t be getting the rushing yards at all without them.”

Alston also marveled at the strides his team was making each game, and not just in the trenches. With big shoes to fill from a strong senior class in 2021, several players grew into those roles and made them their own.

After hitting the 40-point mark twice in their first four games, the Marcos scored 44 or more in seven of their final eight games, and reached the 60-point mark in their final three regular-season games. On the other side, the defense only gave up more than 30 points three times over the last eight games, leading to the late-season surge.

“From Week 1 to the end of the season, we were a completely different team – not just offensively up front, but everywhere. I saw growth from a huge number of kids who just matured and grew into really good football players, confidence-wise,” Alston said. “They had the ability, it was just more of a confidence and skill thing that we were able to see grow. Brock kind of mirrored that, and it was kind of neat to see how so many of them kind of just grew together like that.”

•••

Every team faces adversity, and it hit the Marcos at the most inopportune time: the night before the playoffs.

In the final five minutes of the last walk-through at practice Oct. 27 on the eve the first-round playoff game against Hiawatha, Grenoble suffered a knee injury. Not knowing how severe it was, Alston knew the team could go one of two ways: rally around their fallen team leader, or fall apart without him.

Soltow was one of the reasons the Marcos did the former.

“We talked about it Friday [Oct. 28] right before the game. Mr. Alston came up to us and said, ‘Let’s play this game this for Avery. It’s our time to shine for him. Let’s make a big run for him,’” Soltow recalled. “We really felt terrible for him on that Thursday when he went down, but we all felt good going into that game playing for him. We did not want to lose that game … and we did everything we could do to make sure we didn’t.”

At the time, the team’s focus was to keep winning until Grenoble could return. But when it became obvious that the injury was serious enough to require season-ending surgery, the two-pronged rushing attack turned into more of a solo act.

And Soltow was the perfect guy for the job.

“When Avery went down, I think he kind of realized that he was going to have to be a little bit better, and take on more responsibility and be more of a leader out there, and he was able to do that,” Alston said.

For his part, Soltow said he didn’t feel any added pressure to pick up the slack. He knew the guys stepping in for Grenbole – mainly Delo Fernandez and Noah Dewey – were ready for the challenge.

“Not really, because I knew I had Delo and Noah back there with me, and every time they stepped in for us, they would have a good run and make plays,” Soltow said. “Even when we passed out of it, it would be perfect. It was great with them in the backfield helping me out, and our O-line was really clicking by then.”

But it was inevitable that Soltow would have to carry more of the load. In three playoff games, he had 102 carries for 746 yards and 14 touchdowns, running for at least 220 yards and four TDs in all three games.

With that came a lot of punishment from opposing defenses, but his coach truly admired Soltow’s ability to get back up after every hard hit.

“There were a lot of times where he was pretty beat up, especially in those three games in the playoffs when he carried the ball a ton – and he never complained,” Alston said. “He just limped his way back to the huddle, and then when he’d get the ball on the next play, he’d be normal again. It was kind of amazing the way he was able to do that. He’s a tough kid.”

•••

After storybook endings to the last two playoff runs, this season’s finale was the stuff of nightmares. After taking a 48-44 with 42 seconds to play in the I8FA semifinals, the Marcos’ hopes for a third straight state title-game berth were dashed when West Central senior star Kaiden Droste scored as time expired.

The heartbreaking finish took its toll on the Polo players, and nobody took it harder than Soltow. He was despondent and in tears for quite a while after the game, especially when he embraced a wheelchair-bound Grenoble after receiving plenty of hugs from West Central players in the handshake line.

“It took me a few days to stop feeling sick about it,” Soltow said. “That Monday, I didn’t go to school; I was pretty upset. I took a day off to refocus, and I knew some of the other players did, and some of us got together to try to feel better and get rid of that game from our heads and move onto the next thing. We’ve got next year, but I felt bad for those seniors because it’s their last year, that was their last game, and that was it for them. It was a really tough ending.”

But it was the camaraderie of the teammates that helped change the attitude from grief and pain to anger and resolve. Soltow said that a little time has given him perspective on just how well Polo was playing at the end of the season, and that will serve as motivation in preparation for next season.

“That loss really showed a lot to us, and how far we’d come,” Soltow said. “To lose on that score on the last play, it sucked – but after a couple of days, everybody came together and said, ‘This is going to be the play that we remember going into next season.’ We’re all going to be thinking about it from now until the start of next season, everyday while we’re getting ready for next year. We’re going to remember that and keep building up and getting better and better, because that play will drive us. We want to go back and get that [state championship] ring next year.”

And even though last season ended just a month ago, the Polo players who are coming back next year have already started using the loss as fuel for the offseason.

“We’re really eager to get going and get back on that football field. We’ve got 12 juniors coming back, and 11 of them have already been on the field this past season, and we’re all ready to get back again,” Soltow said. “This offensive line is already putting in the work in the weight room, and we’re all putting that work in, and it’s awesome to see us all in there putting in the work.”