The Libertyville varsity football team wrapped up their regular season on Oct. 23 with one of the best and most dominating regular seasons in program history. The team finished a perfect 9-0 and won the North Suburban Conference Championship, taking down accomplished rival schools along the way.
Not even the perfect record can do this team’s regular season justice. The team dominated opponents from the first whistle way back on Aug. 28 against Elk Grove and didn’t take their foot off the pedal all year long. Each game this year was won by at least 20 points, with the biggest thrashing coming in a 48-0 win over Lake Forest Academy, a game in which a running clock was implemented early on.
The season was chock full of memorable moments, from senior quarterback Riley Lees’ 309-yard, 6 touchdown performance in week one, to senior linebacker Riley Buncic’s 99-yard interception returned for a touchdown in a win against Warren.
Offensively, the team was led by Northwestern commit Lees, who didn’t lose a step from his 2014 campaign, once again putting up video game-like numbers in 2015. Lees finished with 1,129 passing yards, 1,367 rushing yards, and 38 total touchdowns. Running back Noah Moderwell proved to be an invaluable member of the offense with 500 yards and 9 touchdowns on the ground, while senior Henry Schmidt led the receiving corps with 583 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns.
Despite the offense’s incredible numbers, Chris Davis, an LHS P.E. teacher and the team’s Offensive Coordinator, said that the most valuable aspect to their team has been the defense and their lights-out play in each game this year. The unit, lead by Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) commit Ben Kimpler, gave up a mere 97 points all season long, 71 points fewer than the next-best defense in the conference.
Buncic lead the defense with 44 total tackles, Kimpler brought home the most sacks with 7, and senior linebacker Ryan Maher, who suffered a torn ACL midway through the season, still managed to be atop the team with 3 interceptions.
This team and its success was predicated on the idea of family and sacrificing for your brother standing next to you. “Yeah, it might be cliché,” admitted Davis, “but [this team] really is [family]. Like any family, it’s not always easy… but at the end of the day, everybody knows that we all have each other’s backs and we’re all in this together for the good of us as a group, not just us as an individual.”
Even with the strong regular season, the team knows that they haven’t reached their goals yet. The true test to a team is the playoffs, and senior right tackle Brad Deberry knows it. “As a group of mostly seniors, we are all looking forward to getting further in the playoffs than we did last year,” Deberry said.
In regards to the postseason, Coach Davis said that “It doesn’t really matter who we play or where we play or when we play or what we play; it’s just coming out competing against ourselves and knowing that at the end of the day, we’ve done everything we can to put ourselves in the best situation possible. And at that point, let the cards fall as they may.”
