Opportunity comes in several different ways.
The opportunity awaiting Metea Valley on Friday night is two-fold.
On one hand, Metea Valley opens a regular season on Friday night in the exact same fashion it closed out its last regular season: hosting Neuqua Valley.
Last year’s 28-14 Week 9 loss at home to the Wildcats may have marked the fifth loss in five all-time meetings for the Mustangs, but it shows the gap between the two District 204 programs is closing.
Consider the fact the 28 points Neuqua Valley scored was the fewest it has put up against Metea Valley while the 14-point margin represented the closest meeting between the two programs.
The opportunity for the Mustangs to take another small step against the Wildcats is there to be had.
“Playing Neuqua, you play them Week 1 or you play them Week 9, it’s still the same,” said Metea Valley coach Ben Kleinhans, entering his fourth season at the helm. “High-quality, very talented program that you’re going to have to play your best game against.”
Senior quarterback Conner Lovely and a slew of new skill players will be charged with that task as the program looks to get its first-ever victory over Neuqua Valley.
Kleinhans, who spent several years coaching in the Neuqua Valley program before taking the Metea Valley job in 2012, knows what his team will see.
The Wildcats’ multi-set offense gives it the flexibility to attack opponents in several different ways.
“I think Neuqua Valley’s Neuqua Valley,” Kleinhans said. “They’ve won a lot of games here recently playing their style of football. I don’t think that that’ll go too far away from that. They’ve had three pretty phenomenal years of success, so I think they’re going to continue with what they got going.
“Whoever’s playing quarterback or not, they’re going to run the football—no matter how good of a receiver they got out there. When they had (Illinois sophomore receiver Mike) Dudek, they still ran the football for 2,000 yards.”
In 11 combined all-time meetings against Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley, Metea Valley is 0-11.
District 204’s decision to move from the Upstate Eight Conference to the DuPage Valley Conference means more games against high-quality competition along the lines of the Wildcats and Warriors.
With last season’s first-ever playoff team having laid the groundwork, Lovely and crew just want to keep the train moving.
“It almost seemed like we had to work to get to that level that some of the other area teams were at, like Waubonsie, Neuqua and (Naperville) Central, North,” Lovely said. “Historic teams that have been historically really, really good. And I feel like last year was really the first team that really had the confidence and the aura about them where they were winners.
“That’s who they were. That’s what they’ve been doing throughout the entire year they’ve been here. That’s what we plan to transfer to this year, as well.”
For Neuqua Valley, the start of the 2015 season brings an opportunity to begin atoning for what didn’t go as planned in 2014.
Last season’s 6-4 finish was the first time a Bill Ellinghaus-coached team hadn’t won at least 10 games or at least reached the state quarterfinals.
The two-year varsity career of Indiana State quarterback Broc Rutter now concluded, Ellinghaus gives the keys to his multi-faceted offense to senior quarterback Jack Stankoven.
The Wildcats’ fourth-year coach, however, hasn’t closed the door on a couple QBs seeing action against the Mustangs.
Stankoven enters his first career start having thrown only one career pass, a five-yard completion in a 54-29 victory over Bartlett last October.
As one of the prominent skill targets he’ll be employing this year sees it, Stankoven has been doing all the right things in preparation.
“For the most part, I think Stankoven has been able to fill his shoes pretty well,” Western Michigan-bound tight end Brett Borske said of Rutter. “He’s been making the throws you need to make and I think he’s just stepped up. He’s proving a lot of people wrong about our quarterback situation and I think he’s just stepped up and brought up his game. So I think we’ll do pretty well with him.”
Isaiah Robertson, Owen Piche and Borske figure to lessen Stankoven’s learning curve somewhat as Neuqua Valley looks to pick up where it left off against Metea Valley.
The Wildcats’ two junior receivers, Robertson and Piche, along with Borske combined to catch six of Rutter’s eight completions against the Mustangs last October for a combined 181 yards and a TD.
Unlike Metea Valley, which sees the two Naperville schools for the first time ever the next two weeks, Neuqua Valley’s foray into DVC play begins with three familiar opponents.
Come Sept. 18 when the Wildcats meet Wheaton Warrenville South for the first time ever, they will have already played both Metea Valley and Waubonsie Valley, along with Naperville Central.
“More important than the fact we’re playing against an opponent we’ve seen before, I think our first five games are all playoff opponents,” Ellinghaus said. “They’re all playoff teams, if I’m not mistaken. … You’ll have a good idea of where we’re at. … I mean, Metea was in the playoffs last year.
“They’re excited over there. We beat them last game of the year last year. Our kids are excited to play another rival. Metea and Waubonsie, obviously sister schools. It’s always been great competition.”
