Focusing on ‘little things,’ Dwight Trojans look to build off 2023 playoff appearance

DWIGHT – Last Tuesday’s 7-on-7 between the Dwight Trojans and Streator Bulldogs was more of an informal run-through for a pair of close neighbors who don’t anticipate seeing each other on the schedule anytime soon and wanted a sparring partner to begin preparing for not only more demanding summer scrimmages to come, but the season ahead.

The Trojans and Bulldogs have something else in common – a less-than-ideal record of making the IHSA playoffs.

Unlike Streator, however, Dwight is coming off a postseason appearance and trying to build upon it with a number of talented returners in key positions. While the team just got going in earnest this past week after allotting the month of June for student-athletes to do offseason work in other sports, hopes are high the Trojans can follow last fall’s 5-5 record and the program’s eighth playoff appearance with more of the same in 2024.

“There’s a totally different vibe,” Trojans wingback/linebacker/safety and team captain Dylan Crouch said Tuesday. “I feel like we have really good relationships with each other. We had a few good relationships last year, too, but I feel like we’re really coming together as a team this summer.

“The vibe’s just high right now. The sky’s the limit.”

Last year’s Class 2A bid was the first trip to the playoffs for Dwight – which co-ops with Gardner-South Wilmington – since making the Class 3A postseason in 2018, current coach Luke Standiford’s first season leading the varsity team. Prior to that, it had been a 12 year playoff drought.

Things came close to being even better for Dwight, which suffered three losses – 20-19 to Fieldcrest in the season opener, 31-28 to St. Bede in Week 7 and 27-26 to Marquette in Week 9 – by three or fewer points. The 5-4 regular-season record as opposed to finishing 6-3, 7-2 or even 8-1 meant the Trojans had to face Chicagoland Prairie Conference champion Seneca in the opening round of the 2A playoffs and suffer a second lopsided loss at the hands of the powerhouse Fighting Irish.

Crouch stopped short of calling this fall’s games against regional conference rivals St. Bede, Seneca and Marquette [which Dwight plays twice this season, in Weeks 4 and 9] chances at revenge, but admitted wins there would help the Trojans’ chances this season, as well as be satisfying.

“Those would be big wins,” Crouch said. “We were, what, something like eight points away from being 8-1? It’d feel good to get those.”

Players such as Crouch, all-conference linebacker/2023 leading tackler Evan Cox, running back Caiden Nelson and linemen – the strength of the team, according to Standiford – Landon Burkhardt, Wyatt Statler, Graham Meister and Will Anderson give the Trojans legitimate reason to aim for another postseason berth.

If Dwight did make the playoffs, it would be only the second time in school history the Trojans made appearances in back-to-back years. The last came in 1983 and 1984.

Standiford hopes the road to that second berth started last week.

“I think it will just come down to being really good at the little things,” he said. “When I evaluated our team last year after the season was over, watching film [for] things we need to work on, it was just those little details. The steps, the footwork, reading and reacting – doing the minor little details.

“That’s going to be the message all summer long. If we want to improve on what we did last year, it’s just doing the little things right.”