With no conference championship and no playoff appearance at stake to motivate the Galesburg High School football team in the final week of the regular season, don’t expect a letdown from the team.
First, the Streaks know defending state champion Peoria will likely be extra motivated for revenge after GHS was the only team to keep the Lions from an undefeated season in 2016.
More importantly, however, Streaks head coach Tim Dougherty says slacking off is not what his team is about — as they proved in the previous two games.
“Kids handle it. They handle it no different than last year,” Dougherty tells WGIL, “We had a great week of practice as we have for – really the last three weeks. The lights have come on and unfortunately we’ve just been a few short on plays a scoreboard points.”
Dougherty says the strategy to defeat Peoria tonight will be the same strategy the Streaks had the previous two weeks – put together sustained scoring drives.
“That’s why we had success. We didn’t win the last two weeks against two teams who are going to get to the playoffs, but we had sustainable drives. I thought it was our best defensive effort.” he said.
Dougherty says he knows Peoria is going to score points, but he’s not worried about his own team’s offense either, “I feel confident we’ve got to run the ball and move it, and that’s how teams get enamored by them – at the end of the day you got to have one more point than they do.”
The Lions, meanwhile, are likely headed for the playoffs again this year, but at 5-and-3, still need a win to guarantee a postseason appearance.
Their offense remains the biggest challenge they present for opponents by averaging better than 61 points per game; however, they also give up an average of 46 points per game.
The pre-game broadcast gets underway tonight on 93.7 FM and 1400 AM WGIL at 6:30 sharp and a 7:00 kickoff as there is no preliminary game.
