Shaw Media / ShawLocal.com • Tuesday, Jul 26, 2022
WHITESIDE NEWS
14
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
Steamers look to reload with new group of senior starters By DAN WUSSOW
dwussow@shawmedia.com FULTON – After a COVID-altered 2020 season, the Fulton football team resumed its winning ways as it returned to a full schedule in 2021, compiling a 9-3 record and reaching the IHSA Class 1A quarterfinals. In 2022, the Steamers will try to replicate that success while relying heavily on a new crop of senior starters. Although the roster features 18 seniors this year, it will be somewhat lacking in game experience. Just a handful of those seniors are returning starters, so Fulton will be looking to many of last year’s backups to fill its vacated roles from a season ago. “Roughly we have three or four [returning starters]. Not very many,” Fulton coach Patrick Lower said. “We’ve been senior-dominated actually the last two years. We have 18 seniors, which is great, but a lot of them haven’t seen a ton of time, so there’s a big question mark there. “We have senior offensive lineman Braiden Damhoff returning, and then we’ve got Ryan Eads, a running back for us. And those two guys played the
Earleen Hinton/Shaw Media
Fulton’s Ryan Eads runs through would-be tacklers during last year’s Class 1A first-round playoff game against Chicago Raby. Eads is one of only a few Steamers who saw significant playing time last season. majority of the time last year. Ethan Price as well as a tight end. And then several guys that played hit-and-miss, here or there.”
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to an Open House on Saturday, July 30, 2022, from 2 to 4 pm at the Cordova Civic Center, Cordova, Illinois, celebrating the 95th birthday of Raymond Shackelford and the 50th wedding anniversary of Pam and Terry Barber.
One of the position groups hit hardest by this spring’s graduating class was the offensive line. Damhoff is the only returning starter in the trenches
for Fulton this year. Although the Steamers will be counting on many new starters in 2022, they still like their chances of performing well this season. “I feel like we’ve got a lot of young guys here that can really help us, and I don’t think that losing our seniors is going to affect our progress this season,” Damhoff said. “I feel that we’re going to have a really good passing game this season with Brayden Dykstra back as our quarterback.” “Our expectations are to pretty much just carry on what we did last year,” Eads said. “We had a lot of seniors that left us last year, but I think we have a lot of backups and a lot of juniors that are now seniors that can easily fill those roles. But I hope to do even better.” Two games that stand out on the schedule this year are Week 4 against Muskegon (Michigan) Catholic Central and Week 5 against reigning Class 1A state champion Lena-Winslow. The Panthers handed Fulton its season-ending loss, 54-28, in the IHSA quarterfinals last year, and also won
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