Emotions are always high when the St. Joseph-Ogden and Unity football teams meet.
Two tradition-rich programs who have experienced plenty of regular-season success and
postseason triumphs.
Two programs who want to beat the other one. Badly.
Unity did just that to the host Spartans last Friday night in an Illini Prairie Conference game,
leading throughout in a convincing 40-10 win at Dick Duval Field.
“I thought early on, we were almost too jacked up, and that led to some unfortunate penalties
and mental miscues,” SJO coach Shawn Skinner said. “That’s always the danger of starting too
high is you crash and there’s nothing left. We’re going to learn from that, collectively, and we’ll
be better because of it.”
The Spartans (3-1, 3-1 Illini Prairie) will look to get back on the winning track when they travel to
Bill Walsh Field in Rantoul on Friday evening and play Rantoul. The Eagles (0-4, 0-3) are one
loss away from being eliminated from playoff contention and have been outscored 177-20 in
losses to Unity, Mattoon, Monticello and Bloomington Central Catholic so far this season.
SJO saw its 14-game Illini Prairie win streak snapped against Unity, with Bloomington CC (4-0,
4-0) the only unbeaten Illini Prairie team entering Week 5.
The Spartans trailed Unity 7-0 before senior Lucas Smith made a 31-yard field goal late in the
first quarter to trim the Rockets’ lead to 7-3.
But Unity answered back to go ahead 14-3 before SJO scored its only touchdown of the night
on a 3-yard touchdown pass from SJO senior quarterback Kodey McKinney to his younger
brother, sophomore wide receiver Lane McKinney. Smith’s extra point cut Unity’s lead to 14-10
with three minutes left in the second quarter.
But that was the extent of points for SJO against a stingy Unity defense.
Kodey McKinney finished 10 of 17 for 93 passing yards and added 33 rushing yards on 16
carries, but the Rockets bottled up the SJO run game. Sophomore Logan Umbarger chipped in
24 rushing yards on 12 carries and Lane McKinney had two carries for 14 yards to go along with
four catches for 30 yards. Junior Kaden Wedig hauled in three passes for a team-high 51 yards,
and senior Coy Hayes had a team-high seven tackles.
Unity relied on a balanced offense, with Crewe Eckstein rushing for 135 yards on 29 carries and
two touchdowns. Dane Eisenmenger completed 9 of 18 passes for 175 yards and three
touchdowns as Tre Hoggard (79 receiving yards, 80 rushing yards, two total touchdowns) also
made big plays against the SJO defense.
“I don’t fault our effort,” Skinner said. “We don’t want to get gashed on big plays. We pride
ourselves on that, so we’re going to have to fix that and correct that. With some of our less than
large defensive linemen, I never really saw those guys just get annihilated or pushed down the
field. I thought our maroon jerseys were hanging right in there, and we can build on that.”
Despite the loss to the Rockets, the season is far from finished for SJ-O. After Friday night’s
game at Rantoul, tests still remain when the Spartans host Monticello (3-1, 2-1) on Oct. 3 and
play at Bloomington Central Catholic on Oct. 10. The chance to shake up the Illini Prairie race is
still there.
“This one game doesn’t have to define these kids,” Skinner said. “These kids are going to grow
up. Eventually, these puppies are going to grow into dogs, and that’s going to be a good thing,
but they’re going to have to cut their teeth for now, and they’re going to have nights like this.
That’s part of the maturation process. We’ll see how we respond at practice, but we easily had
our best week of practice leading into this game. Our focus was good. Our attention was good.
Our effort was there. We have to understand that you can’t get so jacked up at the start of a
game like this that then you take yourself out of it.”
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