One of the hottest football teams in the Illini Prairie Conference continued its upward trend on Friday (Oct. 15).

St. Joseph-Ogden posted its fifth consecutive victory, winning its Senior Night regular-season home finale, 29-6, against Rantoul at Dick Duval Field.

During the winning streak, the Spartans have limited three of those opponents to no more than three touchdowns.

Offensively, since the season’s third game, SJ-O is averaging 38.8 points per game.

“I could not be more proud of the steps we have taken every Friday,” SJ-O coach Shawn Skinner said. “They play hard – that has never been an issue – and as they figured things out, they have continued to improve.

“In the first three weeks, we didn’t get in the end zone enough. As the season has progressed, we’ve moved the ball better.”

SJ-O senior Keaton Nolan rushed for a game-high 175 yards on 24 carries and has gained 406 yards on the ground in his last two games.

The Spartans didn’t have fumbles on any of their 37 running plays.

“That’s attention to detail from our backs and our snappers (center Conrad Miller and long-snappers Coby Miller and Rowan Musselman),” Skinner said. “That’s a compliment to how well our running backs, center and quarterback handled the exchanges.

“The conditions were miserable, but I was impressed how well the field held up.”

Quarterback Evan Ingram returned from an injury to complete 5 of 9 passes, three going for touchdowns.

“He really did some good things,” Skinner said.

He hooked up with Griffin Roesch, Alex Funk and Coby Miller on scoring strikes as well as a 37-yard pass play to Ramsey Primmer.

The victory makes the Spartans playoff-eligible following an 0-3 start to the season.

“That was the first step,” Skinner said. “Now we’re going to try to keep stacking them up.”

The Spartans will likely move forward without Coby Miller, who suffered a leg injury.

Miller is second on the team in scoring (eight TDs) and entered last week’s game first in tackles (51).

“He’s a ginormous part of what we do,” Skinner said. “He has had a phenomenal year on defense.

“He does a little of everything. Our hearts are broken, but our fingers are crossed (for a possible return).”

Skinner said this week will give the team time to fill the void.

“It will take multiple guys to fill in for him,” Skinner said. “Luckily, we have some time.”

Offensively, Miller’s 389 rushing yards are second on the team to Nolan’s 761 yards.

SJ-O forced three Rantoul turnovers, including an interception by Garrett Denhart, the eighth Spartan to pick off a pass this season.

“Our defense has been giving us the ball in advantageous positions,” Skinner said.

SJ-O returns to action on Friday (Oct. 22) at Paxton-Buckley-Loda in a showdown between two 5-3 teams. The winner could finish in a third-place tie in the 10-school Illini Prairie Conference.

“This is a great finale for us,” Skinner said. “PBL is so big and physical.

“They are one of the most physical teams I’ve seen.”

Under the tenure of third-year head coach Josh Pritchard, PBL has not lost a home game.

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The Spartans delighted their homecoming crowd on Friday (Oct. 1) with their best defensive performance of the season in a 33-0 win over Bloomington Central Catholic at Dick Duval Field.

SJ-O not only posted its first shutout of the season, but senior Ethan Vanliew returned an interception 100 yards for a touchdown.

Coby Miller rushed for a game-high 178 yards, with 97 of those coming on a third-quarter TD romp.

SJ-O led, 12-0, at halftime.

“We were up 12-0 because of our special teams and defense,” SJ-O coach Shawn Skinner said. “It was nice that Coach (Bob) Glazier (defensive coordinator) was able to get a shutout in his last homecoming.”

Glazier is retiring at season’s end after 34 years on staff.

Quarterback Evan Ingram scored the game’s first touchdown when SJ-O took over on a short field following a snap that went over the head of the BCC punter.

Vanliew almost wasn’t able to be on the field for his heroics.

“On the play before, Isaiah Moore made a phenomenal play, knocking it away, otherwise they would have scored,” Skinner said.

Moore’s play in the secondary set up fourth-and-long for the Saints and enabled Vanliew to be in position for the interception.

“Our defensive backs are playing at a high level,” Skinner said. “Our defense has the attitude that they can score when they get the ball.”

And they have found their way to the end zone multiple times. In previous games, Moore had a pick-six and Miller returned a fumble for a TD.

Against BCC, Tyler Burch and Rowan Musselman picked off passes and Ramsey Primmer recovered a fumble.

The Spartans’ offense did good things in the second half, even when the end result wasn’t a TD.

“We opened the third quarter with an 8-minute drive and to take eight minutes off the clock was important,” Skinner said. “Our offense is continuing to play clean, moving the football and not making critical errors.”

Making the offensive play in Week 6 more impressive is that SJ-O was obligated to make changes on the offensive line. Junior Bryson Helfrich suffered a season-ending ACL injury in Week 5 against Stanford Olympia.

The Spartans shifted tight end Aidan McCorkle to tackle. Peyton Sarver moved from tackle to guard and Jett Morris went from guard to tackle. Spencer Fitch is the other guard.

It resulted in an offense that generated 378 yards of offense against BCC.

“Jett Morris and Conrad Miller (center) are seniors who have done a good job helping those guys,” Skinner said. “Here we are at Week 7 and still playing musical chairs with the offensive line.”

Ingram passed for 63 yards, completing 8 of 17 passes.

Besides Miller and Ingram, other TDs scored by the offense last week were by Justice Wertz and Alex Funk. Wertz finished with 63 yards rushing.

SJ-O (3-3) returns to action on Friday (Oct. 8) at Pontiac, trying to extend its winning streak to four games.

Skinner said the team stayed together in spite of an 0-3 start (to teams which currently have a combined 17-1 record).

“It’s a credit to our kids and the coaching staff that they never got down,” Skinner said. “There was never any panic, just a sense that we will get better.

“There was never a moment where our kids were making excuses or looking backward. We said we won’t be defined by those first three games.”

As for the game at Pontiac, there’s more at stake than the chance to rise above the .500 mark for the season.

“We have never won at Pontiac in the history of the varsity program,” Skinner said. “We have an opportunity to do something no other team has done before.”

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Seniors Keaton Nolan and Coby Miller each scored three touchdowns on Friday (Sept. 24) as St. Joseph-Ogden scored a season’s high in points during a 60-36 romp at Stanford Olympia.

Quarterback Evan Ingram completed 14 of 15 passes for 180 yards and five TDs. He hooked up with Miller twice and also hit aerial scoring strikes to Nolan, Griffin Roesch and Tyler Burch.

Nolan rushed for a game-high 193 yards and two TDs. Isaiah Moore and Miller each rushed for one touchdown.

Nolan scored the game’s first touchdown 51 seconds into the game, staking SJ-O into a lead it never relinquished.

“We had a pretty good idea we could do things in the passing game,” SJ-O coach Shawn Skinner said, “but they are big upfront and we were pleasantly surprised by the running game.

“Keaton got hot early, and we kept going to him. It was a good job by the offensive line.”

The lead at halftime grew to 34-6, thanks to a TD six seconds before intermission. Evans connected with Burch on a 26-yard scoring strike.

One advantage the Spartans have on offense is versatility with some players.

“You can’t pigeon-hole our guys on offense,” Skinner said. “They have multiple positions.

“Griffin (Roesch) might be a tight end or a wide receiver. Coby (Miller) goes from fullback to tailback to slot.

“It’s fun for our kids to line up in different places.”

The Spartans’ lead grew to 40-6 when SJ-O scored three plays into the second half, before Skinner began substituting, getting some younger players varsity experience against Olympia’s first unit.

“They scored one TD on our top-line defense,” Skinner said. “Our starting defense was fantastic, forcing two turnovers.”

Among the SJ-O standouts were defensive lineman Owen Birt and Mark Miller, outside linebackers Nolan, Roesch and Conrad Miller along with cornerbacks Burch and Moore.

“It was a total defensive effort,” Skinner said.

SJ-O (2-3) returns to action on Friday (Oct. 1) at home against Bloomington Central Catholic (3-2), which has lost two straight games.

“They’ve been in the fire and we have a lot of work to do to prepare for them,” Skinner said. “It will be a challenge to see how we respond to a different style defense.”

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Some perspective is needed for the St. Joseph-Ogden football team after the Spartans’ season record dropped to 0-3 following a Friday (Sept. 10) 34-28 loss at home to Prairie Central.

The first three SJ-O opponents have a combined 8-1 record.

“We haven’t played three teams that aren’t good, solid football teams,” SJ-O coach Shawn Skinner said. “Through three games, we’ve seen improvement.

“We haven’t regressed.”

That progress has occurred even though a variety of SJ-O players have been missing – up to six for some games – during the first one-third of the season.

“We’re getting healthier every week,” Skinner said. “All of a sudden, the roster we anticipated having, in Week 4 potentially we will have our full arsenal of players.”

Against Prairie Central, Evan Ingram completed 15 of 23 passes for 203 yards. He threw three touchdown passes, two to Keaton Nolan and one to Griffin Roesch.

Nolan had 87 receiving yards and Roesch turned his receptions into gains of 81 yards.

Coby Miller had one rushing TD.

“There’s an awful lot of good things that our kids are doing,” Skinner said. “We found a way to throw the ball. We didn’t have a turnover for the second straight game and we had just five flags.”

Significantly, the four SJ-O touchdowns came on the team’s final four possessions.

“In our first two games, we scored early and as the game went on, we struggled to find ways to move the ball in the second half,” Skinner said.

Skinner credited assistant coach Dalton Walsh, who had a press box view of the game and “was seeing things that were open and calling the plays.”

After managing 16 total points through two games, SJ-O put up 28 in Week 3.

Defensively, the Spartans made it tough on the Hawks.

“They were 7-for-8 on fourth-down conversions,” Skinner said. “That’s not a negative reflection on what our kids did, but more a positive reflection on what Prairie Central did.

“Credit our kids for forcing those eight fourth downs. We made Prairie Central earn everything. They only had three splash plays, gains of 20 or more yards.”

SJ-O (0-3) returns to action on Friday (Sept.  17) at home against Chillicothe IVC (0-3).

“We’re home again and there’s a lot to be excited about,” Skinner said. “Everything we want to do is right in front of us.”

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For the second game in a row, the St. Joseph-Ogden football team got on the scoreboard early and held an 8-0 first-quarter lead.

Also for the second game in a row, that turned out to be the team’s final point total as SJ-O dropped a 33-8 decision on Friday (Sept. 3) at state-ranked Tolono Unity.

The Rockets held a 13-8 halftime lead and had only expanded the margin to 20-8 until the game’s final 6 minutes.

“We saw our kids take steps in the direction we want to, steps in the right direction,” Spartans’ coach Shawn Skinner said. “Now we simply need to put four quarters together.

“We felt we had about 1 ½ good quarters in the first game, and this week, we put three decent quarters together. Of their first two scores, one came on a big play and on the other, a big pass play set them up.

“In the third quarter, we had some significant plays on the defensive side.”

Coby Miller lifted SJ-O into an early lead, scoring a touchdown and then adding the two-point conversion.

Miller led the Spartans in rushing with 60 yards on 18 carries. Keaton Nolan gained 45 yards on 12 attempts.

Evan Ingram completed 5 of 14 passes for 32 yards. Nolan and Griffin Roesch each had two receptions.

Skinner saw improvement from Week 1 to Week 2.

“Pre-snap, we did things better which allowed our kids to play faster and better,” Skinner said. “From an offensive line standpoint, they did a better job keeping their blocks.

“We gave a challenge to the offensive line and they lived up to it.”

SJ-O’s opening game was played one day after former head coach Dick Duval passed away. The second game was played four days after Jim Cotter – who had a son on the team – passed away.

Senior Austin Cotter not only suited up, but was also a defensive line starter against Tolono Unity.

“In the first game, he played the best football game of his life and earned the opportunity to start,” Skinner said. “What stood out on film was that he did his assignment on every play. He played well throughout (at Unity).”

Another SJ-O standout in Week 2 was punter Tyler Burch, who was called upon seven times.

“He did a fantastic job of punting and flipping the field a couple of times,” Skinner said.

Among Burch’s punts were ones for 50 and 42 yards.

SJ-O (0-2) returns to action on Friday (Sept. 10) at home against Prairie Central.

“It should be a good game to see if we’ve made the strides we think we have,” Skinner said. “The things we do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday translates into how we play on Friday.

“We’re trying to get all 67 kids in the program to buy into that.”

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Dade Allinger 6’2″ 2020
Andrew Beyers 5’11” 2022
Payton Cain 6’0″ 2020
Drew Coursey 6’0″ 2020
Payton Grimsley 5’9″ 2020
Conner Hodge 6’3″ 2020
Lukas Hutcherson 5’9″ 2021
Evan Ingram 5’10” 2022
Chance Izard 5’10” 2020
Jordan Kelly 5’9″ 2020
Ty Pence 6’4″ 2023
Luke Renfrew 6’0″ 2020
Braydon Rupert 6’8″ 2020
Jackson Rydell 6’3″ 2021
Brayden Weaver 5’8″ 2020

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