Cary-Grove seniors, motivated by memory of 2022, authoring another season to remember

The Cary community will forever speak fondly of its 2023 high school football state champs.

This season's Cary-Grove team is the talk of the town again, with a Class 6A quarterfinal set for 1 p.m. Saturday at home against Belvidere North.

The 2022 team?

Trojans senior two-way starting lineman Ty Drayton paused when asked about it after C-G's second-round win, looking into empty space, stoically, as if he's answered the question 100 times.

Make it 101.

This is a community, after all, that loves high school football, especially winning football. It's a village that been treated to 53 postseason wins and four state championships since 2004.

And then there was silence two seasons ago.

No postseason ball for the local boys. No Saturday matinees in November at Al Bohrer Field.

"We call it, 'The Year We Do Not Speak Of,' " Drayton said Saturday after helping top-seeded C-G improve to 11-0 and extend its winning streak to 18 games by beating visiting Antioch 41-8 in a second-round playoff game .

"That offseason, we went in with the mindset of we're never going to let that happen again," senior quarterback Peyton Seaburg said. "It was a bad feeling."

The players have moved on from an atypical season for C-G's program, which missed the state playoffs in 2022 for the first time since 2003.

"Obviously it's not the most beautiful memory I have," senior middle linebacker Charlie Ciske said of the 2022 season. "It's something in the back of my mind, but I don't play not to lose. I play to try to win. We have a strong community. I feel like I'm playing for a whole community behind me, playing for the guys next to me, playing for those who are watching."

The players moved on long ago from 2022.

Ciske, Drayton and Seaburg were sophomore starters on a young squad that finished 3-6, losing its last five games after a 3-2 start. The sophomore starters also included running back Holden Boone. All four players have played big roles this season for the Fox Valley Conference champions.

Ciske and Seaburg were named All-State this week by the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association. Drayton earned honorable mention.

"[The 2022 season] was definitely tough," said Drayton, who started Saturday's game with a tackle for loss, added a sack and tipped a pass that was intercepted by Ciske. "That was my first year starting, and it was my first time really being a part of the varsity team. It was a really big letdown."

The win-loss record didn't completely tell the story. The season-ending losing streak started with a 27-16 loss at Prairie Ridge in Week 5. A 17-14 defeat at home to Huntley followed. Jacobs pounded the Trojans 41-7 to keep the Trojans' skid going, before the Trojans finished the season with two more tough losses, 10-7 to Burlington Central and 24-10 to Hampshire.

"A lot of things went wrong that year," Drayton said. "I think Coach [Brad] Seaburg said that we could have been 6-3. There were just some badly-timed injuries, the ball not bouncing in our direction, stuff like that, that resulted in that. That 3-6 really wasn't indicative of how good that team was."

Like any good program, the Trojans stuck to the process. Their resiliency was evident last year, when they opened the season by winning their first four games. They won their last seven to finish 12-2, capped by a 23-20 win over East St. Louis in the Class 6A title game.

"These guys, their sophomore year, had some really tough losses and went through a lot of adversity and never quit, never deviated from the process," Brad Seaburg said. "We lost some just heartbreaking games that year, and a lot of kids would have folded. None of those guys did."

How could they let down a community, their teammates and coaches, after all?

"As players, being in school and being in the community, there are such high expectations for our program," Brad Seaburg said. "It's tough, but they came right back out and had a great year last year.

"And we're still going."

The Trojans are dominating, in fact, like old times. They're 19-1 in the playoffs since 2018.

"I think that says a lot about our conference," center Lucas Burton said. "We have [Prairie Ridge], Huntley, Jacobs, all great teams. We don't play outside of the conference obviously, so I think when other teams come here, they aren't ready for how physical it will be."

Physical football. November football. Cary-Grove can talk about that all day.