Wilmington football

Wilmington Wildcats are State Champs!

Published by admin on Tue, 11/28/2023 - 3:32pm

STATE CHAMPIONS! Wilmington football co-captains (from left) Brody Benson, Joe Allgood, Brendan Moran and Cade McCubbin hoist the Class 2A State Championship trophy inside Hancock Stadium in Bloomington on Friday after defeating Athens 28-3. This is the third time in school history the Wildcats have won a state champion but the first they knocked off three undefeated teams in order to get there.

Read the play-by-play of the big game in sports.

Photo by Alyssa Ohlund.

Surpises were few during first week of playoffs

Published by admin on Mon, 10/31/2022 - 1:17pm

And then there were 16. That’s how many teams are left in each of the eight classes of the IHSA football playoffs as winning teams move on to the second round.
Wilmington (2A), Reed-Custer (3A) and Coal City (4A) all advance to the second round after winning on Saturday. The Wildcats (9-1) will host Tri-Valley Downs (8-2) at 6 p.m. Saturday, Reed-Custer (10-0) will play saturday at 5 p.m. against visiting Pecatonica - Du-Pec Coop (8-2) while the Coalers (7-3) have a four-hour drive to Carterville (10-0) near Marion, IL for a 1 p.m. kickoff Saturday.

The best touchdown of the night was for the opposition

Published by admin on Wed, 09/28/2022 - 4:14pm

The fresh-soph Wildcats scored eight touchdowns Friday night but the most memorable one of the game was one scored by Herscher.
It came late during a 53-12 victory for Wilmington when both sides of the field agreed to give the ball to Hayden “Buck” Buckner.
Buck is a special player, one of those kids who shows up at every practice, plays the game with more heart than most, yet rarely gets game time, said Herscher head coach Mike Mosier who had left the field to prepare his varsity team. He returned just in time to see the end of the play.

'Cats won't look past Herscher on Homecoming

Published by admin on Tue, 09/20/2022 - 6:05pm

It has all the makings of being a trap game. It's Homecoming and the only home game for the Wildcats before a rare three-game road trip that will go through Braidwood, Lisle and Streator, but Wilmington won't look past Herscher (1-3).
The Tigers were blitzed by Coal City last week 63-14. “First and foremost, we want our kids to have fun with the week. I think we learned earlier in the season that you can't look by anybody,” saidhead coach Jeff Reents.

Wildcats beat the Bulldogs

Published by admin on Sat, 10/13/2018 - 1:11pm

Two touchdowns each for Wildcats Conner Dempsay and Sam Hafner were enough to shutout the Streator Bulldogs as the Wilmington varsity football team kept their playoff hopes alive.

Wilmington racked up 354 yards of offense before a Senior Night crowd, while limiting Streator to 128 yards, 93 on the ground.

The Cat's went up 20-0 before the half thanks to a pair of interceptions and added an insurance touchdown in the fourth to win it 27-0.

Too little, too late for Comets as Wilmington rolls, Another Coaler shutout

Published by admin on Sat, 10/06/2018 - 11:14am

Wilmington' varsity football team scored 38 unanswered points over the first three quarters before Reed-Custer got on the board in a 38-13 routing of the Comets Friday night.

The loss eliminates the Comets' hopes of reaching the playoffs while the Wildcats improve to 4-3 overall and  still have a chance.

 

Comets nearly upset Lisle, Coalers and Wildcats win

Published by admin on Sat, 09/29/2018 - 10:08am

Reed-Custer came close in pulling off the upset of the season, scaring undefeated Lisle in a 24-21 overtime loss.

The Comets owned a 21-7 lead in the fourth against the only team in the Interstate Eight with a perfect record. Reed-Custer got its touchdowns in the air with a pair of passes from quarterback Josh Loomis to AJ Cherry and a third to Nick Mitchell, silencing the Lisle home fans at Benedictine University field Friday.

Cat's advance in playoffs

Published by admin on Sun, 10/29/2017 - 5:18pm

The Wilmington Wildcats upended Elmwood-Brimfield 30-14 to advance to round two of the Class 3A playoffs.

The Wildcats took advantage of three Trojans fumbles and held the visitors to just 83 total offensive yards to improve to 9-1 overall. Wilmington quarterback Keaton Hopwood completed three of eight passes but two of them were for touchdowns, the first to Conner Dempsay for 21 yards, followed by a 35-yard screen pass to Josh Jones to build a 13-0 first quarter lead.