The Naperville area’s other big football rivalry takes center stage on Friday.
There won’t be 15,000 fans or a half-dozen TV crews covering the action like at last week’s Naperville Central-Naperville North clash at North Central College.
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But the stakes will still be high when Naperville’s Neuqua Valley travels to Waubonsie Valley for Friday’s regular-season finale. More than 6,000 fans are expected to crowd into the Warriors’ stadium in Aurora for the game, set to kick off at 7:30 p.m.
For the hosts (5-3, 4-2 Upstate Eight), it’s a win-or-else, one-game season. Waubonsie Valley needs a victory to qualify for the Class 6A playoffs, which open next week.
“I think they’re excited about it, and they’re pumped up,” said Warriors coach B.J. Luke, whose team hopes to snap a two-game losing streak. “We’ve had some good practices, and we’re looking forward to the game.”
Neuqua Valley (2-7, 2-4) is not playoff-bound, so it hopes to play spoiler against its District 204 rival.
“We’d like nothing better than to knock them out of the playoffs,” said Neuqua coach Bryan Wells. “It would be great to have that kind of notch in our belts.
“For the seniors, [a win] would be something they’ll remember for a long time,” the Wildcats coach added. “One of our seniors said that [with a win] we’d get to talk about it for the next year. And one of the other seniors corrected him and said we’d get to talk about it for a lifetime.”
This is only the second meeting of the teams, compared with 31 matches between Naperville North and Naperville Central. The Warriors beat the Wildcats 14-6 in last year’s series inaugural.
“I’m sure you’ll see a real festive atmosphere on Friday night. We always draw well, and I expect [the attendance] will be more than usual,” said Luke, who estimated a crowd of 6,000 to 7,000, compared with the usual draw of about 4,000.
But both coaches envision this rivalry will eventually match that of their neighbors.
“It’s only going to grow as both of us become more dominant in our conference, just the same way as North and Central have,” said Wells, adding, “I think District 204 is kind of a community in and of itself. Waubonsie Valley has functioned as kind of a community center for several years for that area. And Neuqua’s doing the same thing in south Naperville.”
Waubonsie Valley was 5-1 overall and alone atop the Upstate Eight going into its Oct. 6 game at Streamwood. But a 20-18 loss to the Sabres that was followed by a 13-12 setback last week to Lake Park has left the Warriors scrambling to make the playoffs.
“We’ve had a couple of tough losses,” said Luke. “The first one was a situation where we didn’t really prepare very well going into the game. And then we hit a Streamwood team that really had things going for them.
“[Then] in week eight, we got it handed to us. Lake Park just did a nice job defensively and got after us and really won the battle up front.”
For Neuqua Valley, the season has been somewhat disappointing for a team that had hoped to better last year’s 4-5 mark.
The Wildcats opened the season with four losses, then beat DeKalb and Lake Park before suffering back-to-back setbacks to St. Charles East and Streamwood.
Still Neuqua individuals have put up good numbers this fall.
Senior quarterback Mike Askren has thrown for 1,182 yards and nine touchdowns, and receiver Chris Keagle has 35 catches for 588 yards. Nick Pancoska has more than 600 yards rushing and averages around five yards per carry.
Running back James Whitelock leads Waubonsie Valley with 824 rushing yards and has scored eight touchdowns. Quarterback Joe Sweeney has thrown for 708 yards and rushed for 279, and Mike Dugal leads the receiving corps with 29 catches for 313 yards.
Waubonsie Valley’s challenge is to contain Neuqua’s varied attack.
“We’ll have to be ready for the pass as well as the run,” said Luke.
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“And then we’re going to have to move the ball in a crowd ourselves and be able to spring a pass play to keep people honest.”