After a long commute, Hersey pulled up at Neuqua Valley in a couple of coach buses on Friday night.
There was no evidence Jackson Travis drove one of the buses. But once the game kicked off, he carried the offense like he owned a chauffeur’s license.
The junior running back gained 165 yards on nine carries in the first half alone as Hersey started fast and rolled to a 49-14 nonconference victory in Naperville.
“It was definitely a long bus ride here, but practice this week went really well,” Travis said. “I think we came into this game with the positive mindset that we were going to physically dominate this game. And I think that’s exactly what we did.”
Travis broke loose for a 30-yard gain on the game’s opening play. He eventually covered 60 of the 80 yards on the opening drive and scored on a 1-yard plunge. He added a 61-yard sprint, then a 33-yard TD just before halftime.
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During the past year, Travis made a remarkable recovery from a serious knee injury and won a battle in summer camp for the No. 1 running back role.
“I had a concussion Week 1, had another concussion later on,” Travis said of his sophomore season. “Then in October, homecoming week, I had an MCL and PCL tear which put me out.”
Out for a while, but Travis not only was back in the spring for track season, he qualified to go downstate in both the high jump and long jump.
“He seems healthy, right?” Hersey coach Tom Nelson said. “Looks good. We’re excited about Jackson. He’s a strong, powerful, fast athlete.”
Travis’ competition was senior transfer A.J. Korba, who was sidelined by a knee injury but made his season debut Friday. Korba actually grew up in Arlington Heights and his siblings graduated from Hersey, but he went to high school at Badger in Lake Geneva before his parents moved back this year.
Obviously, Hersey got around to throwing the ball with Kentucky-bound quarterback Jake Nawrot. He completed his first seven passes and finished 17 of 22 for 230 yards and four touchdowns.
Among Hersey’s receivers, Dom Wentink had six catches for 45 yards, while Jaxon Saint Paul added catches for 37 yards and 2 TDs. Travis did not carry the ball in the second half.
Nelson said focusing on the ground game wasn’t necessarily the plan going in, but when Travis got going, it was an easy choice to keep handing the ball off.
“Honestly, for us, we’re going to use all five eligibles,” Nelson said. “Jackson obviously had some great plays. I think any way you slice it, all five guys are going to touch the ball on offense.
“It just happened to be his number (Friday night). He played well.”
In the third quarter, Nawrot connected on two long TD passes to Josh Riggs for 69 and 33 yards.
Hersey can also play defense, keeping Neuqua Valley’s offense bottled up in the first half, outside of a 31-yard run by quarterback Drake Mennecke, which made the score 21-7.
The Wildcats, playing their first game on a new artificial turf home field, also scored on their second drive of the third quarter. Mennecke found Josh Repmann, who finished with six catches for 69 yards, in the corner of the end zone for a 10-yard TD.
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The Wildcats (1-2) played another highly-ranked team in Week 1 and played with Oswego for the first half before losing 44-22.
“They kind of punched us in the mouth and we took it in the first half,” Neuqua Valley coach Bill Ellinghaus said. “That’s a good football team. This was not what we thought was going to happen.
“We thought we could compete better than we did.”