This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

DGS Football Preview: Primed for Playoff Run

Williams, Simoncelli two keys to Mustangs' bid for 15th straight postseason berth.

When football team opened training camp on Aug. 10, running back Josh Williams showed up healthy and sporting at least five pounds of extra muscle after hitting the weights hard in the off-season.

That’s bad news for opponents charged with trying to slow down the 5-9, 175-pound senior, who begins his third season as the Mustangs’ starting tailback. In 2010, Johnson rushed for more than 1,200 yards and 21 touchdowns, including six in one game, despite missing all or part of four games with an ankle injury. The sky seems to be the limit.

“I have to step up,” Williams said. “My teammates around me are looking for me to do what I can do and do it as best as I can. I can’t let them down. I’m looking to do the best I can so that can open up opportunities for other players.”

Find out what's happening in Downers Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Already widely known for his shifty moves and quick acceleration, Williams knows he’ll need some extra muscle because teams will be doing everything they can to shut him down. But he doesn’t mind taking punishment.

“I look forward to it every week,” Williams said. “It’s fun knowing that some people will be out to hurt you, some [will] be out to stop you as best as possible. But then again that just opens up more doors for our team to show its diversity.”

Find out what's happening in Downers Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

South does have a diverse array of offensive weapons, including Marco Scalzetti and Kaylon Miller at receiver and senior A.J. Simoncelli at quarterback. The 6-0, 155-pound Simoncelli isn’t big, but he managed the team well last year in his first season at the helm and is more confident in his abilities this time around, though he takes nothing for granted.

“I have a lot of confidence from last year,” Simoncelli said. “Hopefully [I can] just build on that. When you’re given the starting position, you can’t really think about [your status] when you’re training and working hard. You kind of try to think of, well, maybe somebody could beat me out, and that’s what pushes me to work hard.

“Hopefully we’ll just put up bigger numbers for offensive purposes. I don’t care how we do it, as long as we score a lot.”

The skills of Simoncelli and Williams complement one another because if one is doing well, the other will have opportunities.

“Especially when he’s racking up all the yards, then the defense puts a lot of players in the box and I’ll have a field day throwing,” Simoncelli said.

“He’s going to have a great season,” Williams said of Simoncelli. “He improves every day. I notice that he’s not just outside throwing the ball. He’s also in the weight room getting bigger and doing everything possible to help us get a winning season this year.”

Both players have confidence in South’s offensive line, which is led by returning starter Shane Companey. Fellow seniors Tim Lieb and Mark Muench started a couple of games last year and junior Sean Eslit is expected to do well in his first year on varsity after playing defensive line at the sophomore level. Tight end Scott Daly, a 6-4, 220-pound senior, has signed with Notre Dame as a long snapper.

As good as the Mustangs could be on offense, their defense will be even better, as seven starters are back.

Senior defensive end Josh Aldrin, who missed last year with a torn ACL, and senior Chris Eberhart anchor the front line, while seniors Leo Arventakis, Lance Leong and Melvin Saulsberry lead a strong linebacking corps. Senior Danny Leach will be a catalyst, moving from safety to corner back while serving as a backup running back and a return man.

Special teams figures to be solid. Senior Anthony Farinella is regarded as one of the top kickers in the Chicago area and Williams and Leach are dangerous returners.

“I think going into the season our strength is we don’t have a lot of weaknesses right now,” Downers South coach John Belskis said. “We don’t have a lot of Division 1 players walking through our halls, but we think we can compete with programs that have Division I players and that’s our goal.

“We think we at least have a chance to win every game. I’m not going to say we are, but I think our kids have the opportunity to be competitive in every single game no matter who we play.”

One thing the Mustangs will be putting a big emphasis on is getting off to a good start. South has qualified for the playoffs 14 consecutive years and 26 of the last 27, but has started 0-2 in each of the past three seasons.

In each of those years, the Mustangs recovered to win their final seven regular season contests. Last fall they opened with close losses to Bolingbrook and Glenbard West and ended the campaign by losing 36-22 to Neuqua Valley in the first round of the playoffs.

“We’ve talked to our kids about that,” said Belskis, whose team is heavily favored to win the West Suburban Conference Gold Division title for the fifth straight year.

“If you look at all those games, those games could have gone either way, so we’re looking at why maybe some of those things didn’t go our way. Our goal is to be 2-0 going into (league play) even though it’s going to be a daunting task. Ultimately the goal is to get down to Champaign. The year we won state [2001] we started 1-2. We’re looking forward to the challenge.”

South will open up with different, though not easier, opponents. The opener is Aug. 26 against South Elgin, which was 7-4 last year and reached the second round of the playoffs. The Mustangs follow that with a trip to 2010 state quarterfinalist Lyons Township.

“We can’t look at it that it’s going to be easier,” Simoncelli said. “We have to go into every game thinking that this team is going to be a really hard team to play and we have to step it up all over the field – offense, defense, special teams. It can’t just be one or two people.”

The Aug. 26 game against South Elgin will be the team's first on South’s long-awaited artificial turf field.

“Hopefully we can get a lot of people out there,” Williams said. “We know that people are going to want to come to see the field, but they also come to see us open up the right way.”

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?