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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St. Joseph-Ogden’s football team broke into the win column in a big way on Friday (Sept. 17), building a 35-point halftime lead en route to a 48-7 Illini Prairie Conference triumph at home over Chillicothe IVC.

Spartan coach Shawn Skinner praised the leadership of five seniors – Coby  Miller, Griffin Roesch, Conrad Miller, Jett Morris and Keaton Nolan – in helping the squad get through its rough start to the season.

“I never sensed any panic,” Skinner said, ”just a sense of urgency, focus and wanting to get back.”

Evan Ingram completed all five of his first-half passes, including two for touchdowns in the opening period. Roesch and Nolan hauled in the scoring strikes to stake the Spartans to a 14-0 lead after one quarter.

Sophomore Joe Frasca, in his first game as the placekicker, made six consecutive extra-point conversion kicks. Miller is the long-snapper and Roesch served as the holder for the attempts.

SJ-O had its top offensive performance of the year, amassing 317 total yards.

The Spartans had rushing TDs from Nolan, Isaiah Moore and Justice Wertz.

The defense got into the scoring column as well. Moore returned an interception for a Pick Six and Miller – who rushed for a game-high 66 yards – returned a recovered fumble for a score. Tyler Burch also had an interception.

Skinner said Miller’s defensive score came on a special play for the middle linebacker.

“He blitzed, knocked the ball out (of the quarterback’s hands) and then returned it 33 yards for a score,” Skinner said.

Ingram completed 5 of 7 passes for 105 yards.

For the third straight game, SJ-O allowed fewer yards than it did the previous week. IVC was limited to 177 yards.

Skinner wasn’t surprised by the Spartans’ performance.

“We felt like we were going in the right direction (the previous two games),” Skinner said. “It started with our preparation. We had our best week of practice. The attention to detail was good.

“In the game, it was a combination of all three phases contributing in a lot of ways.”

That was evident in the game’s opening minutes.

With Frasca kicking off to start the game, IVC took possession on its own 20-yard line. The SJ-O defense then forced a punt after three plays weren’t able to gain 10 yards.

“Four plays later, we struck gold,” Skinner said, referring to the quick score.

The process was then repeated.

The next Frasca kickoff resulted in IVC taking over at its own 24. Another punt was forthcoming, followed by a TD on the Spartans’ second possession, set up by an Ingram-to-Nolan pass near the goal line.

The defense came up big on the third IVC possession. After the Grey Ghosts drove downfield, Burch intercepted a pass in the end zone.

“That was a significant play in the game,” Skinner said.

SJ-O (1-3) returns to action on Friday (Sept. 24) at Stanford Olympia (1-3).

SJ-O can’t afford any letdowns in its preparations.

“Olympia has had periods where they’ve looked good,” Skinner said. “If you don’t play assignment football, they can expose you real quickly.

“They’ve come up short against some good teams.”

Olympia’s losses have been to still-unbeaten teams from Monticello and Unity as well as to a one-loss Paxton-Buckley-Loda squad.

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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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