Sunday special

By TIMOTHY WOLFMEYER - twolfmeyer@nwnewsgroup.com

Woodstock alumni Craig Kastning and Dave Davis were members of the 1997 Woodstock state champion football team. (Justin Runquist photo)

It was August, nearly three-and-a-half months before Craig Kastning sealed a state title with a goal-line interception of Rock Island quarterback Jim O’Melia, yet, there, in Ed Brucker’s home mailbox, lay a handmade sign reading “Woodstock – 14-0, FVC champions, 1997 Class 5A champions.”

    “Every year, on the night before the start of two-a-days, we’d get together and teepee Coach Brucker’s house. It was tradition,” Mike Brasile, a junior lineman on the Blue Streaks’ 1997 squad, said. “Craig and [starting quarterback] Adam Vetere made that sign, brought it along, and put it in his mailbox.

    “They did it as a joke. I’m not sure anyone actually believed everything on that sign would eventually come true.”

     In 1997 everything written on that sign – the undefeated season, the Fox Valley Conference championship, the Class 5A state title – came to fruition. The Streaks, led by Vetere, All-State running backs Kastning (3079 total yards, 29 touchdowns) and Roy Fritz, a dominating line and a suffocating defense, experienced perfection few have ever experienced.

    Fourteen games, 14 wins.

    “It was amazing,” Kastning said. “Every year when state rolls around I find myself thinking about that season. What we accomplished. What we were able to give to this community.

“People still talk about it like it was yesterday. People still call me ‘the running back from the state championship team.’

    “I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already.”

   

ELEVATED EXPECTATIONS

    “Heading in [to 1997] we knew we had something special,” said Kastning, one of multiple starters who returned from the program’s 1996 Class 5A quarterfinal team. “We knew we had the players to make a deep run. You’re never actually thinking, ‘We’re definitely going to state,’ but it was always in the back of our minds.”

    Preparation for the 1997 season began almost immediately after Woodstock lost to Rock Island, 44-36, in 1996’s 5A quarterfinals. Weightlifting sessions, passing drills and impromptu practices took place throughout the winter, spring and summer months.

    “In our eye the 1997 season started once the 1996 season ended,” Brasile said. “As a team we made a pact to do whatever it took – lifting, running, whatever – to make sure in 1997, we’d get the job done.”

    Come August, the Streaks, a year removed from their best season in nearly a decade, were itching for the 1997 season to begin.   

    “With so many guys back, with the kind of season we had the year before, there were a lot of expectations,” Dave Davis, a junior captain in 1997, said. “Expectations put upon us and expectations we put upon ourselves. There was pressure – not pressure to win state, but pressure to go deep into the playoffs. That was apparent from the very first day of camp.

    “Preseason there was talk of a state title. But we at least wanted to go farther than we had in 1996. Anything less than that would have been disappointing.”

    Brucker, entering his fourth year as Woodstock’s coach, knew the 1997 team would be one of his best.

    “I think we knew going in we would be pretty good,” said Brucker, now the coach of Marian Central. “All along we knew we had a shot.”

     

THE SHOWDOWN IN WEEK TWO

    As good as Woodstock was expected to be, a giant roadblock stood between the Streaks and perfection.

    Eight-time defending FVC champion McHenry.

The Warriors, who last dropped a conference game in 1993, entered Week 2 with their own state aspirations. Quarterback Dennis Jackson and running back Pete Rasmussen made up one of the area’s top backfields, and a number of starters returned from the program’s 1996 team, which thumped the second-place Streaks, 32-14, at Larry Dale Field.

“They were the hump we needed to get over,” Brucker said. “If we wanted to achieve our pre-season goals, if we wanted to win the FVC, we had to beat McHenry.”

    Early on, it seemed the Warriors’ dominance over their biggest rival would continue. McHenry, playing at home in front of nearly 5,000 fans, jumped out to a 14-0 lead five minutes into the first quarter.

    “We got up early, and figured with our tradition, with our home field advantage, they would roll over – like they had the previous year – and we’d win easily,” Jackson said. “We never thought we’d have a complete letdown. We never thought we would lose that game.”

    “It looked like déjà vu,” Brucker said.

    Woodstock, however, refused to quit. Fourteen unanswered points evened the score, and at the end of the third quarter, the Streaks led, 28-27.

    McHenry briefly regained the lead, but a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns, including a Kastning score with 2:26 left, sealed the Streaks’ 41-33, season-changing win.

    “I still remember most of that game, to be honest,” former McHenry coach Mike Noll said. Noll, who left McHenry after the 2003 season, now coaches at Glenbrook South. “It was a classic. We knew going in it would take a great performance to beat them, because they had a lot of players back. And other than a few plays, we had a lot of success against them.

“I wasn’t that surprised when they went on to win state,” Noll said. “They were solid in all facets of the game. They had no weaknesses.”

    Davis said the McHenry game was the season’s turning point – when the Streaks went from, “We’re good,” to “We’re really good.”

    “It was the only game we were ever really down,” Davis said. “And to come back like that, on the road, against our main rival – that was really telling.

“That week we beat a really good team. It opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

    “WE WERE COMPETING AGAINST OURSELVES”

    Woodstock rolled through the remainder of the regular season – only in Week 7, when defensive miscommunication contributed to a tight game against Crystal Lake Central, did the Streaks fail to win by a double-digit margin.

    “The rest of the season, it was like we weren’t competing against other teams – we were competing against ourselves,” Davis said. “By the second or third quarter the starters were usually on the bench. So while we were out there, we made sure we were competing against our personal bests.”

    Brucker said following the McHenry game, his team often struggled to keep focus.

    “After McHenry I think we really started having aspirations of an extended playoff run,” Brucker said. “And with the guys looking so far ahead, there were times where we had a little difficulty keeping focus. There were some games where we slipped up. But we always had confidence.”

    In Week 8, the Streaks faced undefeated Cary-Grove, which, like Woodstock, had beaten McHenry at McCracken Field. What on paper seemed to be an incredible matchup, however, turned out to be anything but.

    The Streaks pounded the Trojans, 49-21, clinching the FVC title in the process.

     “From the first quarter it was apparent they were clearly better than us,” said C-G coach Bruce Kay, whose team later advanced to the Class 5A semifinals. “We couldn’t control the ball. We had a tough time stopping them.

    “At that time quite a few of the state champions were private schools – Mt. Carmel, Providence Catholic, Joliet Catholic – so it was tough for us to really know how good [Woodstock] was. It was tough to say, ‘That’s a state champion, right there.’ I couldn’t judge how good they were, but they were much better than us. I know that.”

    With the FVC title locked up, the Streaks, a perfect 9-0, set their eyes on a state title.

    “That was the pivotal point,” Davis said. “The FVC is ours, now let’s go get a trophy. [C-G] was a make-or-break game. It was the first game with a playoff atmosphere. We prepared like it was a playoff game, like it was do-or-die.

    “And though everyone thought we would win, no one thought we would win by that much.”

   

SILENCING SKEPTICS

    “We entered the playoffs as the No. 2 overall seed [in Class 5A], but [a high-profile Chicago Tribune preps writer] picked us to lose every week,” Brucker said. “He never once picked us to win. Come to think of it, we didn’t want him to pick us – proving him wrong became part of our motivation.”

    In Class 5A’s opening round Woodstock, playing at home, dominated Fenwick, a Catholic Metropolitan Conference team that fell only to Carmel, St. Laurence and Providence Catholic in the regular season.

    “Once that first game was over we realized we were a lot better than everyone thought,” Kastning said. “Fenwick was pretty tough, and we handled them pretty easily.”

In the round of 16 the Streaks blanked 9-1 Harlem, 28-0. Quarterfinal opponent Oak Lawn Richards (10-1) also proved a less-than-formidable foe – Woodstock, on the road for the first time in weeks, crushed the Bulldogs, 36-8.

“We knew if we got into the playoffs we could do quite well,” Brucker said. “Woodstock teams generally did well in the playoffs, because we didn’t run a common offense. We ran a different type of offense, one usually not seen on a regular basis.”

Despite their unblemished record (12-0), the Streaks – at home, no less – were not expected to fare well against their semifinal opponent, sixth-seeded Kankakee Bishop McNamara. In Week 9 the Fighting Irish snapped Providence Catholic’s state-best 50 game winning streak, crushing the eventual Class 4A champion, 30-8.

“Everyone felt [McNamara] was the favorite,” Davis said. “They rolled Providence, so everyone saw them as the powerhouse. All week we heard, ‘[McNamara] beat Providence, we hadn’t beaten anyone, [McNamara] has all these D-1 players, etc.”

 Brucker remembered being impressed with McNamara while watching the cable channel CLTV after Woodstock’s Week 9 victory over Lake Zurich.

“We would have get-togethers at a coach’s house after every game, and after our regular-season finale we were all sitting around watching [prep highlights on] CLTV,” Brucker said. “They showed highlights of McNamara’s win over Providence. I remember thinking, ‘Wow. They’re pretty good.’ And here we were, four weeks later, playing them in the state semifinals.”

    Prognosticators predicted a blowout. They were right – almost.

    The Streaks scored on their first drive. They scored on their second drive. They scored on every one of their first-half possessions, building a 35-7 halftime lead.

    “It was 21-0 before [McNamara] knew what was going on,” Kastning said. “For us, at that point it was like, ‘Wow.’ I think we might have peaked right there.”

    Woodstock’s 49-14 thrashing of McNamara did more than place the Streaks into late November’s Class 5A championship game – it validated the team as a true contender. It turned non-believers into believers.

    “That was as probably as good as we played,” Brucker said. “[McNamara] was a very good team, and we pretty much dominated them.”

    “At that point, regardless of what anyone said, we knew we were the best team out there,” Davis said.

   

VALHALLA

Two days after Thanksgiving, Woodstock and top-seeded Rock Island, the team that knocked the Streaks out of the 1996 playoffs, met at Normal’s Hancock Stadium for the Class 5A title.

“It was nothing less than a classic,” Brucker said.

A breathtaking first quarter saw two ties and a pair of lead changes. Rock Island, on Alonzo Wise’s 53-yard run, grabbed a 7-0 lead six minutes into the game. A pair of Fritz touchdowns put Woodstock on top. Wise answered with a 41-yard touchdown minutes later.

The Streaks felt confident when unanswered second and third-quarter touchdowns – Kastning from three, Kastning from 34 – put them up 14 with 19 minutes to play.

But the contest, seemingly over, was anything but.

Rock Island’s Ashley Harris barreled in from five yards out at the 11:39 mark of the fourth quarter, cutting Woodstock’s lead to 28-21. Later, given an opportunity to push their advantage back to 14, the Streaks turned the ball over on a fumbled punt. And when Harris scored a 1-yard touchdown run with 159 seconds remaining in regulation, the game, once so close to being out of reach, was tied.

With 2:39 left Woodstock took over on its own 20-yard line.

“Everyone was freaked out,” Kastning said. “Here we were, we had just blown a 14-point lead in the state championship game, and now we’re 80 yards away. But I remember [Vetere] walking into the huddle and saying, ‘Relax. We’re fine.’ And for some reason, we knew we were.”

Woodstock’s final drive was one of utter dominance. Kastning, that season’s Northwest Herald Player of the Year, began the series with a 13-yard run. He then went for 32. For 15. For six.

“It was the same play, just run to different sides,” Kastning said. “Our line peeled everyone off. It felt like a scrimmage. A couple of months later [Rock Island coach] Vic Boblett came up to me at an All-Star game and said, ‘I still don’t know how we could have stopped that play.’”

Fifty-seven seconds remained when Fritz, two plays after Kastning single-handedly brought his team down the field, scored from 13 yards out.

“My first feeling was we scored too quickly,” Brucker said. “There’s too much time left.”

The Streaks purposely kicked the ball away from Wise, who had already broken the state record for rushing yards in a title game (he ended with 202). The ploy failed to work.

Rock Island’s Tyler Carroll received Brian Sundberg’s kickoff at the 25, then threw the ball across the field to Wise, who ran all the way to Woodstock’s 37. Davis, momentarily taken out of the play by a block, preserved the lead with a game-saving tackle.

Four runs and an incomplete pass later, the Rocks, out of timeouts, faced third-and-3 from the Streaks’ 13. Seconds remained on the clock.

“I was just praying they’d throw, because they really couldn’t throw,” Kastning said. “They had one pass play, and we knew what it was. Everyone knew what was coming.

“I backed off, gave [Wise, split right] 10 yards, and watched him run right at me. I broke on the ball before he did.”

Kastning intercepted the pass at the 5-yard line and broke toward Rock Island’s end zone. He ran down his own sideline, right past his screaming teammates.

Brucker yelled at Kastning to get down. He didn’t. Silently Davis screamed, “Take a knee!” He didn’t. He stepped out of bounds at his own 43. It didn’t matter. Kastning ran all the way into Rock Island’s end zone, where he was mobbed by his teammates.

The journey, one year in the making, was finally over.

Months after making a prophetic sign, Woodstock was, in fact, 1997’s Class 5A champion.

“That moment was so surreal,” Davis said. “We had just won state, everyone was cheering, we got medals, the trophy … but the reality didn’t set in for a while. It was hard to comprehend – we just won state?

“Even now, 10 years later, it’s hard to remember everything. Because in all honesty, it’s hard to believe all of that stuff actually happened.”

   

– Timothy Wolfmeyer is a sportswriter for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at twolfmeyer@nwnewsgroup.com.