By Ed Muniz-Photos by Jenn-Anne Gledhill
** Additional Photos are Available for purchase for 2 weeks at https://justallsports.zenfolio.com/p671183362 **
St. Charles- Following a football tradition that began way back in 1911 in Missouri. Homecoming came calling to St. Charles, Illinois on September 21.
The Tri-City Chargers of the Bill George Youth Football League saw several of their teams play host in the celebration of returning home with a slate of games featured at the vast James O. Breen Community Park complex.
Among the participants were the Tri-City Silver Green 9U Chargers. They played host to the visiting Lombard Falcons.
Unfortunately for the Falcons, the Chargers weren’t very welcoming host on the football field after pasting the over-matched visitors with the 33-0 thumping, improving the 9U Silver Green Chargers to 4-1 on the season.
Coach Josh Feagans Chargers were so overwhelming in their dominant performance that for the whole second half he managed to have backups gain lots of playing time and give every player a chance to contribute to the Homecoming celebration.
“I think at this level, the defense kind of controls the game,” said Coach Feagans. “That’s been most of our season, the defense controls the game, and you break off a play here and there on offense. The defense tries to get the ball back to our offense as much as possible and then we hope we’re going to break off a big play on offense.”
“At 8-and 9U you’re not going to consistently drive the ball downfield, so you need those big chunk plays. What’s key for us is getting our uncovered lineman up on the linebacker, when we do that, the outside opens. I’m very happy, the boys played very, very hard after being a little lack-lustered in pregame. We had to wake them up.”
“Wake them up” turned out to be an understatement. The Chargers were so dominant, the Falcons offense never advanced beyond their starting position at their own 35 yard-line the entire game and tallied negative yard for the game against the Chargers defense, while the Chargers offense scored three of their five touchdowns on their very first play of the series.
An indication of things to come appeared on the very first snap of the game. A Falcons fumble was recovered by Chargers’ Jack Hayes. His recovery was the catalyst to the Chargers onslaught and the demise of the Lombard guests.
Nicholas Therault first snap saw him bust free for 15 yards. After a short gain by Brayden Pinella, Pryce Hendricksen had the run of the game.
Taking the handoff, he headed to the far sideline, got to the edge with several defenders making attempts to stop him, his use of a stiff arm helped him early on the play but once defender had him in their grasp, he kept moving and shrugged them off one by one. His effort to keep moving towards the endzone finally rewarded him with a 17-yard touchdown.
“We do a lot of live plays and when we do, our coach tells us our gaps, so you get used to it, you see the gap and you go to it,” said Hendicksen.
His refusal to stop certainly looked battery powered much like the Energizer Bunny even in the arms of Falcon defenders.
“I was just moving my legs trying to get into the endzone. The first kid I stiff armed him and then the second one I was just running as fast as I could, and he fell off, then I was just trying as hard as I could to get the touchdown with guys on me. I have good balance. That’s the play I’m supposed to run so I had to run it,” said Pryce.
After the Chargers touchdown for a 6-0 lead, the defense went to work. Tackles by AJ Pezza, Cole Rigdon and Anthony Mariotti saw the Falcons going backwards and give up the football on downs.
Immediately after that, Quarterback Nicholas Therault took the snap and busted up the middle into the clear and didn’t stop until he scored the Chargers second touchdown of the first quarter after 32-yards. Ryan Pudwill added the extra-point that upped the Chargers lead to 13-0.
On the ensuing Falcons offensive series, a big tackle for loss by Hayes again had the Falcons headed the wrong direction. A pair of tackles by Pinella and a solo by Mariotti saw the Falcons lose the ball on downs again as the game entered the second quarter.
Once again, immediately on the ensuing snap, Therault took off, he scrambled, weaving through the Falcons defense and rambled 32-yards into the endzone for the Chargers third touchdown and his second for the 19-0 advantage.
“I really just keep working hard,” said Therault. “I get everybody pumped up and listen to coaches. I make things work out. I make sure the snap is secured first and then I go to which hole the blockers have open, so I can go through it. I look for the gap and I think I do that really good. On defense we exploded off the ball pretty good. I think we did everything really good today.”
Things got worse on the next Falcons play. AJ Pezza made his presence felt by recovering a fumble and getting the ball back to his offense.
Pezza turned out to have a pretty good game. Not only did he recover a fumble, but he was stellar defensively and was a main reason the Falcons offense struggled all day.
“I was just trying to push the guys out of the way and get in the backfield,” said AJ. “I keep focusing on where the ball goes and who has the ball. If they don’t snap the ball, I wait because I don’t want to be offsides. I like exploding off the ball because it gives me a head start to make the tackle, my teammates help me too. Its good helping them and them helping me.”
Again, it took the Chargers just one play to extend their lead.
The very next play saw Jack Hayes take a handoff and run left, get to the edge and out-pace everyone up the near sideline into the endzone on the 34-yard touchdown run.
Ryan Pudwill connected with Therault for the two-point conversion pass, upping the lead to 27-0.
The hapless Falcons just couldn’t move the ball against the aggressive Charger defense. On four tries, the Falcons lost yardage every time behind the tackling of Cole Arsenault, Feagans and Noah Herold.
Back on offense after the stop, the Chargers lost 10 yards on a fumble but increased their lead to 33-0 on their next try. Briggs Rinn’s 35-yard burst around the left edge went untouched closing out the game scoring right before half time.
Many of the Chargers second unit saw extensive play the rest of the game. Ryan Pudwill took over the reins at Quarterback for the Chargers, trying to lead the offense on another scoring drive. By this time the Falcons defense had decided no more scoring and upped their play.
All though the Chargers moved the ball and used up the entire third quarter and part of the fourth, they were unable to add to their lead. Defensively, the Chargers were a wall, refusing to give anything to the visitors from Lombard.
Tackles and suffocating line play kept the shutout intact. Rinn and Arsenault made tackles with Hendricksen recovering a fumble.
Runs by Pudwill, Luca Coletti and Rigdon closed out the 33-0 Shutout Homecoming victory.
The line play on both sides was at their best in this game. Defensively, they were dominant in shutting down the opposing offense, constantly losing yards every try.
Offensively, the main cog of the Chargers line play was Grayson Feagans. His center play and blocking gave time for his backfield to get plays off.
“Getting the ball and not fumbling, it’s pretty hard when you play the center,” said Grayson Feagans. “You can’t look back because you have to block, you worry if you fumbled the snap or not. I look back sometimes and get run over, I know you can’t do that, so I still have to learn more about that. I thought I blocked good today; I like blocking to my left; I think I’m better that way.”
It was evident that the entire line blocked well in either direction!
Others helping out and giving their all in the Homecoming win were Mason Jost, Bennett McCurtain, Jack Leslie, Gavin Lukensmeyer, Franco Biundo and Hudson Bluett.
