By Eddie Rodriguez, Reporter
This year’s varsity football players may be smaller in stature than last year’s team, but they’re faster.
“We’re fast and we do what we’re supposed to do, which gives us an upper hand against most teams,” junior linebacker Ryan Lawrence said.
The team finished the regular season campaign with a 9-0 record when the Knights defeated the Morris Redskins 31-28 to win the conference title.
Both teams had 8-0 records going into the game, and it was the second back-to-back undefeated regular season for the Knights, who made to to the semifinals last year, only to be defeated by the Montini Broncos, who later won the state title.
Eleven Knights players (six offensive, five defensive) were named all-conference. Drew David, Quinn Buschbacher, Sean Carter, Ben Kovalick, Alex Snyder and Nick Sharp rounded off the offense while Jacob Razo, Lawrence, Blake Bradford, Kory Harner and Ryan Noel rounded off the defense. Running back Jesse Balluff was also an honorable mention.
“I think [the season’s] gone well,” junior linebacker Blake Bradford said.
For him, the best game of the season was the Knights’ come-from-behind win against Sycamore on Oct. 14, when Kaneland trailed 14-0 in the first quarter but wound up winning 35-21.
It hasn’t been often that this powerful Knights team has had to come from behind in the regular season, but they expect the competition to get tougher.
The Knights headed into the 5A playoffs as the number one seed for the second year in a row, defeating the sixteenth-seeded Belvidere Bucs 51-45 on Oct. 28.
The Knights are expected to face the two-time defending state champion Montini again, after possible matchups against Burlington Central, Sycamore and Rochelle.
The team has been closely studying its opposition before each game, watching hours of video.
“We’re watching plenty of film, making sure we know our responsibilities and going over our fundamentals,” Kovalick said. “I definitely think we are right up there. It’s a great privilege to be on a team like this.”
