Warriors prepare for school’s first-ever football state title game

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

ROCKFORD — The football practice field at Rockford High School is deserted these days like it usually is this time of the year.

Lonely. Barren … like the recently harvested fields adjacent to it.

But the Warriors are among the select few teams in the state for whom football is still in season. And since they earned their right to play inside during the final few weeks of this extended season, it should be fitting that they practice inside.

In Rockford’s gymnasium, where normally many of the team members are practicing their jump shots for the forthcoming basketball season, the Warriors were preparing for the school’s first-ever state championship game.

Rockford will take on New London, 10 a.m. Thursday at the UNI-Dome for the Class 8-Player title.

Like the Warriors, the Bulldogs are 11-1. Unlike the Warriors, who romped over higher seeded Southeast Warren, 52-19, in the semifinals, New London needed overtime to survive Fremont-Mills, 60-54, for its title shot.

“They have a lot of great athletes,” Rockford head coach Torian Wolf said about the Bulldogs. “They’re a great running team. We’ve got to work hard to stop No. 23 (Keontae Luckett, NL’s leading rusher with 1,473 yards and leading scorer with 28 total touchdowns).

“We also need to contain No. 3.”

That would be quarterback Isaac McSorley, who has thrown for 24 touchdowns and rushed for 23.

“He likes to roll outside the pocket,” Wolf said of McSorley, “and whenever a linebacker comes up, he likes to dump it over his head to one of his receivers.”

Eight-on-eight football tends to be an offensive playmaker’s game, and often when a team puts up 50 or 60 points, it doesn’t guarantee victory.

But what has helped put the Warriors over the top of their higher-ranked opponents this late in the season is their superb open-field and gang tackling.

“We went into the season knowing that was our weakest link from last season,” Wolf said. “That’s why we needed to work harder in the weight room and at practice to improve on that.

“We always have a bunch of tacklers around the ball carrier.”

One Warrior who has been around his share of ball carriers this season is senior Weston Schmidt, who leads the team with 92 solo stops.

“We just have a lot more determination this year,” Schmidt said, “and even more so now playing for a state title.”

Schmidt has been playing for the Warriors since his freshman year. If you ever need to ask what if feels like to play for a winless football team, look up Schmidt as he had to endure two-straight Rockford winless seasons before this one.

“I love football, that’s why I stayed with it,” Schmidt said when he was asked about if he ever thought of giving it up to avoid the continuous agony of defeat. “I also love to win, and winning makes football much more fun.”