Highland football team overcomes slow start to post fantastic campaign
It was a season that hardly started out like it would be another successful campaign for the Highland football team.
A wobbly 1-3 start after four games left the Bulldogs down but far from out.
A young Highland squad recovered a week later and reeled off six-straight wins to turn their fortunes around and once again prove its mettle as one of the metro-east’s top football programs.
“Looking at it (the season) from 1-3, it looks a certain way, but when we came together in August our goals were to win the conference championship and get a better turnover ratio, and make the playoffs. And I’m extremely happy that after a 1-3 start we were able to turn this thing around and get it back on track and get back to our goals,” said Highland coach Jimmy Warnecke, whose team finished 7-4.
After losing to Mascoutah 36-33 in the Mississippi Valley Conference opener Sept. 20, the Bulldogs had to do some soul searching and get real with themselves that weekend.
“We had a pretty blunt conversation that Saturday morning after the Mascoutah loss,” Warnecke said. “We believed that we were a good football team that had good football ahead and we communicated that to the players. It was never an effort thing; it was more (them) understanding what it took in terms of game situations to win. We had to make plays.”
The Bulldogs responded with wins over Waterloo, Civic Memorial, Triad, and Jerseyville to claim a share of the conference title along with Mascoutah and Triad.
That run also coincided with a major surge of success from freshman quarterback Brent Wuebbles, who overcame a rocky start to throw for 1,164 yards and 17 touchdowns with just five interceptions. Wuebbles also ran for 665 yards and scored seven rushing touchdowns as the Bulldogs dual-threat signal-caller.
“Bottom line, he’s a winner,” Warnecke said of Wuebbels. “He’s going to do whatever it takes whether it be a practice, a game, or the weight room for his success and the team’s success. It was just matter of him getting comfortable and the game slowed down a little bit for him.”
Wuebbles and the Bulldogs offense also got a big helping hand from hard-nosed junior running back Logan Chandler.
“Logan is such a hard-working, humble kid and he is such a physical, downhill runner and he is a great complement to our offensive line,” Warnecke said.
Chandler, behind senior linemen Payton Cave and Trevor Zobrist, and junior lineman Sam Buck, ran over and around opposing defenses for 1,530 yards and 19 touchdowns.
“Those guys, we leaned on them, especially at 1-3 ... you’re 1-3, you’re borderline not making the postseason for the first time in like six or seven years,” Warnecke said. “When you’re in that situation, you go with your best.”
Defensively, sophomore Brice Iberg and senior Connor Sands were most active in getting stops for the Bulldogs with 88 and 78 total tackles, respectively. Juniors Eli Jones and Liam Gallagher wreaked havoc in opposing backfields with eight and six tackles for loss, respectively.
The Bulldogs defeated Charleston in the season finale Oct. 25 and then knocked off Cahokia 21-20 the next weekend in the IHSA Class 5A first-round before Rochester ended their season Nov. 9 in the second round.
Warnecke said the staff and players will take the next several weeks off to rest from the long season and that this past season’s success and mid-season turnaround will definitely keep the bar raised for Bulldog football in Highland.
“I’m glad that we’ve got a returning quarterback coming back and that’s going to help us solidify offensively and we’ve got upside with having Sam Buck back and couple of other really promising young guys,” Warnecke said. “The coaches and players, we all have to improve our craft and we’ll be taking a couple of weeks off here and we’re gonna set the bar high (again) and look forward to the opportunity to represent this town again next year and really push these kids and see what we can get out of them.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2019 at 1:08 AM.