Phillips quarterback Tyler Turner doesn’t expect to be perfect, especially against the competition he’s seen this year.

The Wildcats opened with road losses against state powers Batavia and Mount Carmel, and have seen Public League heavyweights Taft and Simeon the last two times out.

Mistakes will happen, but Turner won’t let himself be defined by them.

“It’s football,” Turner said. “You can’t put your head down. You’ve just got to keep throwing the ball like you have no interceptions.”

That’s what he did Saturday afternoon at Gately, and his last throw was the biggest of the game.

Turner saw Avante Savage was going one-on-one against a Simeon defensive back and found him for a 10-yard touchdown pass with 10 seconds left to give Phillips a 14-12 win.

The pair also teamed up on a 34-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. In between came four of Phillips’ five turnovers, including a pair of interceptions thrown by Turner (one returned for a score) and a fumble at Simeon’s 2-yard line.

“We keep balling though we’re down,” said Turner, who was 9-for-23 passing for 90 yards.

Phillips coach Joe Winslow, the Wildcats’ longtime offensive coordinator who took over this season when two-time state champ coach Troy McAllister left for Sandburg, likes his quarterback’s resilience.

“A pick-six can break a kid,” Winslow said. “Like I told him: stick with it, it’s a long game.”

Simeon junior Malik Elzy had the 20-yard interception return for a TD at 10:48 of the second quarter and that was the last score until Turner and Savage’s second TD.

That also was the only big play Phillips (3-2) gave up to Elzy, a four-star prospect who is a consensus top-300 player nationally in his class. He has 13 Power Five offers, including Notre Dame, three SEC schools and six Big Ten teams.

The Wildcats limited Elzy to one catch for five yards. Junior Andre Crews led Simeon’s offense with 19 carries for 56 yards, including a 2-yard TD run.

“We took a page out of the Nick Saban and [Bill] Belichick book,” Winslow said. “My defensive coordinators, they came together and decided we would go beat them up the whole game.

“If [Elzy] ever had a one-on-one, it was going to be two-on-one. He’s a big dog, we respect that. … We treated him like he’s the next big thing. If we can eliminate him, we can force them to be one-dimensional.”

Meanwhile, Phillips was controlling the ball with a steady dose of handoffs to junior back Desean Hill, who had 161 yards on 23 carries.

Like Turner, Hill didn’t get down after the multiple turnovers, which also included a muffed punt and a muffed kickoff.

Phillips’ Avante Savage (9) makes the catch with Simeon’s Andre Crews (4) on the ground. Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

“It was rough, we kept fighting,” Hill said. “We’re tough. We had to stay focused [through] minor setbacks, keep grinding.”

That’s also the mindset for Simeon (2-3), which like Phillips started 0-2 with losses to suburban powers Joliet Catholic and Bolingbrook before beating a pair of Public League opponents.

“We did what we could do but we didn’t do enough,” Elzy said. “It’s a team loss. We’ve got to come back, get better and work harder next week.

“It’s a big loss, but we’ll come back from it.”

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A woman and a 14-year-old boy were wounded Saturday in a shooting in Washington Park on the South Side.

About 7:45 p.m., the 39-year-old woman and the boy were exiting the expressway in the 100 block of East 59th Street, when a dark-colored Audi drove up to them and someone inside fired shots, Chicago police said.

The woman continued to drive east, but later crashed into a silver Pontiac sedan, police said.

The woman was shot in the abdomen and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition, police said. The boy was struck in the left forearm and taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where he was also listed in good condition.

Area One detectives are investigating.

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Let’s just say it, OK?

Somebody other than Notre Dame is winning the national championship this season.

The Irish are too inexperienced, too unspecial at quarterback, too up against it with a schedule only one of the very biggest of the big-boy programs might be able to navigate.

When coach Brian Kelly tells you the difference between himself and Knute Rockne — the man he passed Saturday with victory No. 106 — is that Rockne won national championships, guess what? He’s right.

There’s a whole list of things Kelly and this Irish team aren’t. But you know what? Sometimes, imperfect is kind of cool. Sometimes, focusing solely on who’s No. 1 in the land means you miss some great stuff.

Notre Dame’s 41-13 win against Wisconsin at Soldier Field was pretty cool. And the manner in which the Irish got to 4-0 was pretty great.

“Insane,” said cornerback Cam Hart, who had two of the Irish’s four interceptions. “I love it.”

And Hart didn’t even run one of his picks back for a touchdown. Jack Kiser and Drew White each pulled that off on a rock-bottom offensive day for the Badgers, quarterback Graham Mertz and under-fire coach Paul Chryst.

Trailing 13-10 in the fourth quarter, the Irish needed a spark. Maybe a kick return or a hero off the bench or a momentum-seizing play by the defense — sure, any of those things would do.

Better yet, the Irish got all of them. An electrifying kickoff return for a touchdown by Chris Tyree to take the lead. A touchdown pass to extend it by quarterback Drew Pyne, an undersized firecracker who was in the game only because starter Jack Coan was hurt and backup Tyler Buchner was unavailable. Sacks. Pick-sixes.

It was an avalanche.

“We’re nonstop,” said wide receiver Kevin Austin Jr., who caught touchdown passes from Coan and Pyne. “We’re going to continue to grind, we’re going to continue to fight, we’re going to continue no matter what quarter it is, what down it is, no matter how bad we’re down or whatever the case may be. We’re going to continue to just keep driving and keep fighting to get to our goal.”

That goal is, of course, a national title. But it’s almost unthinkable that a team that needed overtime to beat brutal Florida State and a 75-yard touchdown drive to survive Toledo — and the aforementioned avalanche against offensively broken Wisconsin — is going to do that.

Next up: top 10 foe Cincinnati, the school where Kelly’s last two teams went to the Orange and Sugar Bowls, launching him up the ladder to South Bend. Then Virginia Tech, USC, North Carolina all in a row. All of them might be better than any team the Irish have beaten so far.

On the other hand: Could it be the Irish — who were 6 1/2 -point underdogs against the Badgers — are more than they’ve been cracked up to be? Could it be they’re just getting started?

“Everybody’s trying to peg teams early on, like, who are they?” Kelly said. “We’re still trying to figure ourselves out, but everybody had us already figured out as to who we were. I just know it’s a resilient group that believes they’re going to win.”

Raghib “Rocket” Ismail was at the game. Now 51, he dressed in green and wore a bandana around his forehead and a thick, white beard on his chin. A mere 31 years earlier to the day, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated — “Rocket Man,” it said — the most sensational player in the country.

That was 1989, when the Irish were in a two-year heyday with a 24-1 record and a national title.

This is 2021, and it’s probably different. But pretty cool nonetheless, and maybe even pretty great.

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Notre Dame speedster Chris Tyree doesn’t get many chances to return kickoffs, but he maxed out one of those rare opportunities at a perilous moment on Saturday afternoon at Soldier Field.

Immediately after a Wisconsin field goal put the18th-ranked Badgers (1-2) in front a minute into the fourth quarter, Tyree’s 96-yard kickoff return touchdown ignited a deluge of 31 unanswered points from the 12th-ranked Irish (4-0) in a 41-13 win.

A backup running back and state champion sprinter from Chester, Va., Tyree broke through a large crease up the middle and slashed to his left before racing the rest of the way untouched. His entire trip took just 13 seconds, a remarkable feat considering he was wearing full football gear and did some zigging and zagging along the way.

Tyree has been timed at 4.37 seconds in the 40-yard dash.

C.J. Sanders’ 93-yarder in 2016 against Syracuse had been the last kickoff return for a Notre Dame touchdown. Asked if Tyree’s exploits energized the Notre Dame sideline, coach Brian Kelly grinned.

“Heck, yeah,” Kelly said. “He’s a very fast and talented player. And when they played ‘Jump Around,’ it seemed like we thought that was our fight song and we started playing better. I’ve got to check that with our guys.”

Kelly was at his wisecracking best after surpassing the legendary Knute Rockne atop the career coaching wins list at Notre Dame. With his family, including parents Paul and Thelma, waiting in the postgame interview room, the Wisconsin theme song by House of Pain could be heard blasting down the hall in the winning locker room.

Win No. 106 at Notre Dame was nowhere near as easy as the final score would indicate, thanks to a pair of garbage-time interception returns for touchdowns by linebackers Jack Kiser and Drew White. But it still meant Kelly could now fix his gaze fully on next week’s home matchup with his former program at Cincinnati.

“I’m just glad it’s over with, really, to be quite honest with you,” Kelly said. “I’m proud of the accomplishment (and) the level of consistency and obviously, from a winning standpoint, you have to have great players and great coaches and great support.”

Kelly again credited Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins and athletic director Jack Swarbrick, the management team that hired him 12 years ago and that remains in place.

“I share that with them,” he said. “But I get more joy in watching the development of a Drew Pyne and Chris Tyree. That’s why I do this. You don’t do it for 31 years because you’re trying to beat Knute Rockne’s record — no disrespect to Knute.”

Already missing senior nose guard and team captain Kurt Hinish against the run-heavy Badgers, Notre Dame had to turn to Pyne, the untested redshirt freshman quarterback, after starter Jack Coan suffered a sprained ankle on the second offensive series of the second half.

Facing his former Wisconsin teammates, Coan was sacked five times and finished 15 of 29 passing for 158 yards and a touchdown. With second-stringer Tyler Buchner nursing a tight hamstring, Pyne went 6 of 8 for 81 yards and a touchdown.

Coan, the graduate transfer, remains the starter if healthy, Kelly said, adding that X-rays on Coan’s ankle were negative. Buchner also is expected to return to action against No. 8 Cincinnati.

Cornerback Cam Hart, a converted receiver, added two interceptions as the Irish defense stifled Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz and held the Badgers to a combined 1-of-15 showing on third- and fourth-down conversions.

Yet, even Hart called Tyree’s return “the game-changing play.”

Notre Dame improved to 10-0 in the Shamrock Series since it began in 2009. That included a 41-3 win over Miami in 2012 that marked the last Irish appearance at Soldier Field before Saturday.

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A 31-year-old man was fatally shot Saturday afternoon in South Deering on the South Side.

About 4:20 p.m., he was on the sidewalk in the 10200 block of South Yates Boulevard, when someone in a vehicle pulled up and someone inside fired shots, Chicago police said.

He was struck multiple times and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said. He has not yet been identified.

Area Two detectives are investigating.

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Not to throw a wet blanket over Justin Fields’ first NFL start before he even has a chance to make miracles happen, but prepare yourselves for the possibility that it won’t go so well.

Storybook beginnings don’t always happen for these can’t-miss first-round quarterbacks. Jaguars No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence debuted with three interceptions in a lopsided loss to the Texans. Jets No. 2 overall pick Zach Wilson was intercepted once and sacked six times in an unsightly affair — also a loss — against the Chargers.

The Bengals’ Joe Burrow, the No. 1 pick in 2020, led a single touchdown drive in his first start, a loss to the Chargers. San Diego first-rounder Justin Herbert didn’t start that game but was pressed into starting duty — and played wonderfully — a week later. Alas, he took an “L,” too.

Fellow first-rounder Tua Tagovailoa’s first start didn’t come until November last season, but his Dolphins beat the Rams. Tagovailoa was strip-sacked by Aaron Donald on his first drop-back, though, and finished with a whopping 93 yards passing.

Fields might end up being a great one. He might even start out a really good one. Tom Brady didn’t, on the other hand; he was sacked on the first play of his first career start in 2001. OK, so his Patriots ended up beating Peyton Manning’s Colts by 31 points to get to 1-2 that day and — wouldn’t you know it? — went on to win the Super Bowl.

Anything’s possible, right? Here’s what’s happening:

SUN 26

Ryder Cup, Day 3 (11 a.m., Ch. 5, Peacock)

The Dustin Johnson-led Americans are blowing the doors off Team Europe so far. Why doesn’t this happen more often?

Bears at Browns (noon, Fox-32)

Obsess over Fields’ every move if you must — and let’s face it, you must — but the Browns have rushed for seven touchdowns in two games. That seems like kind of a big deal, too.

Dolphins at Raiders (3 p.m., Ch. 2)

Tagovailoa is out with an injury, and Jacoby Brissett is in. Good luck keeping up with a Raiders offense that smoked the Ravens’ and Steelers’ defenses and ranks No. 1 in the league.

Buccaneers at Rams (3:25 p.m., Fox-32)

Brady has thrown nine touchdown passes already, which puts him on pace for 72 — also the age at which he’ll retire.

Sky at Lynx (4 p.m., ESPN2)

The Lynx finished the regular season on a 9-1 tear and haven’t been beaten by anyone other than the powerhouse Aces or Sun since mid-June. Your move, Candace Parker.

Packers at 49ers (7:20 p.m., Ch. 5, Peacock)

Green Bay scored three points in Week 1 and 35 in Week 2. Will the real Packers offense stand up? And is Aaron Rodgers serious about that hair?

MON 27

White Sox at Tigers (12:10 p.m., NBCSCH)

What’s better than playing a meaningless game in Detroit on what was supposed to be a day off?

Eagles at Cowboys (7:15 p.m., ESPN)

The NFC East is NFC East-ing again, with no team better than 1-1 heading into Week 3. The weird thing is one of these squads is about to have a winning record.

TUE 28

Reds at White Sox (7:10 p.m., NBCSCH)

The Sox don’t need this one, but at least they’re in a fine mood. The Reds are moping around after seeing their wild-card hopes get buzz-sawed to death by the insanely hot Cardinals.

WED 29

Cubs at Pirates (5:35 p.m., Marquee)

Somebody will win, and somebody will lose. Look, we’re bound by law to include at least one Cubs game in this column.

Red Wings at Blackhawks (7:30 p.m., NBCSCH+)

An Original Six rivalry. Pure, unadulterated hatred. Hide the women and children. Or maybe it’s just the preseason opener.

THU 30

Jaguars at Bengals (7:20 p.m., NFL)

The last time these hotshot QBs opposed each other, Burrow and LSU walloped Lawrence and Clemson in the College Football Playoff. That means absolutely nothing here, but it’s fun to remember.

FRI 1

Iowa at Maryland (7 p.m., FS1)

Are the 4-0 Hawkeyes a legit top-five team nationally? If they are, whippersnapper coach Kirk Ferentz might last a while.

SAT 2

Michigan at Wisconsin (11 a.m., Fox-32)

Man, Wisconsin’s offense is a mess. Put it this way: Blink and you might miss a Wolverines pick-six.

Cincinnati at Notre Dame (1:30 p.m., Ch. 5)

Brian Kelly faces the school that really launched his career — and has a very real chance to end his unbeaten season with the Irish.

Northwestern at Nebraska (6:30 p.m., BTN)

Pat Fitzgerald is 5-5 against the Huskers. He outlasted Bo Pelini and Mike Riley. Want to bet he’ll outlast Scott Frost, too?

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The pandemic has been especially rough on kids. There are plenty of studies to back that up and almost everyone has a real-life example from their everyday life.

It’s a topic that comes up often before and after games all over the area. It’s rare for an athlete to say they were able to use the downtime to improve.

Rolling Meadows basketball star Max Christie was one who was able to buckle down and focus. Another basketball player, Glenbard West senior Braden Huff, said back in February that all the downtime had allowed him extra time to strengthen his game in certain areas.

Add Cary-Grove quarterback Jameson Sheehan to the list. The senior led the No. 10 Trojans to a 42-7 win against No. 23 Prairie Ridge on Saturday in Cary.

“[Sheehan] came out of COVID a different player,” Cary-Grove coach Brad Seaburg said. “Some guys went into the quarantine and maybe took a step back. Jameson had a mission and he wanted to get better. We lost contact with the kids for three or four months. When he came back he was bigger, stronger, more mature and really was a great leader too. Hats off to him. He figured out a way to get it done during COVID. Ever since then he’s really emerged as a quarterback force.”

The Trojans were already off to an undefeated start with Sheehan at the helm, but the scope of his improvement was on full display against Prairie Ridge. Seaburg opened up the offense and allowed Sheehan to showcase his passing game.

Sheehan completed his first five passes and finished 5-for-7 for 98 yards with two touchdowns. Both the scores were to tight end Noah Riley, who had five catches for 76 yards.

“I was just happy I was able to execute,” Riley said. “We’ve always focused on passing in practice. It’s part of the game. So we just have to make sure that when we get called on in the game we can execute.”

The Trojans (5-0, 5-0 Fox Valley) jumped out to a 21-0 lead and never looked back. Sheehan scored on a 44-yard run in the first quarter, a 23-yard run in the second quarter and a 37-yard run just before halftime. He had nine carries for 145 yards.

Linebacker/running back Wade Abrams had seven carries for 85 yards, including a 39-yard touchdown run in the third quarter for Cary-Grove.

“It was awesome to throw a bit,” Sheehan said. “The receivers made great plays. It was just how we practiced it.”

Prairie Ridge’s score came on a bit of trick play, quarterback Mason Loucks to running back Zach Bentsen who found Noah Solis streaking downfield for a 69-yard touchdown pass.

Bentsen had 16 carries for 54 yards and Nathan Greetham added 12 carries for 73 yards for the Wolves (4-1, 4-1).

“They are right there [with all the recent state title winners from the Fox Valley conference],” Prairie Ridge coach Chris Schremp said. “We had guys ready to make plays and their guys just out-athleted us.”

Cary-Grove has an excellent chance to run through the regular season undefeated. It’s looking too far ahead, but a possible Class 6A state title game against highly-regarded East St. Louis would be fun. The Flyers and the Fox Valley have dominated 6A recently.

East St. Louis beat Prairie Ridge in the 6A title game in 2019-20 and won Class 7A in 2016-17. Cary-Grove won 6A in 2018-19 and Prairie Ridge won it in 2017-18 and 2016-17.

“Our challenge is just the next game,” Sheehan said. “That’s our main focus. We aren’t looking ahead. There’s no big game. They are all big games. We have Huntley next week. That’s how we approach everything.”

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Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t take kindly to Adam Gaudette and Ryan Carpenter scoring on him on consecutive shots Saturday.

The Blackhawks’ new marquee goaltender smashed his stick on the post, booted a puck out of his crease and sighed as he reset himself for another onslaught of rush drills.

Just three days into training camp, it’s very evident how seriously Fleury takes everything he does — even including practice.

“[Being competitive is] always something I’ve tried to do, right?” Fleury said. “I’ve found sometimes with age it becomes a little harder, especially getting back into it. But…I got a few weeks before camp to skate with the guys and get the timing back and all that stuff, so I feel good now. I feel like I can battle and play those rebounds and make it hard on them.”

“[Fleury] doesn’t give up on pucks,” Alex DeBrincat said. “Even if it’s going to be an empty net, he’s diving over to stop it. That’s what makes him so great.”

That mentality will fit in perfectly with DeBrincat and Patrick Kane, arguably Fleury’s two most dangerous practice adversaries. Kane in particular has already developed a friendly practice rivalry with Fleury, celebrating with excessive vigor — just to rub it in a bit more — every time he snipes the corner.

That’s something Kane hasn’t had many chances to do in his career, having scored just four career regular-season goals against Fleury (two against the Penguins, two against the Golden Knights).

“When…you play against a guy a bunch of times, you’re going to have certain times where you score on him, certain times where he has your number,” Kane said. “Just being competitive in practice, we both enjoy that. If I score on him with a shot, I might say something to him, or vice versa. It’ll be fun to enjoy that throughout the year.”

The goalie opposite Fleury in Group A has rotated each of the three days: Kevin Lankinen on Thursday, then Collin Delia on Friday with Lankinen placed on COVID-19 protocol, then Fleury’s old Knights teammate Malcolm Subban on Saturday with Delia out with a non-COVID illness.

That doesn’t matter so much when the Hawks have Fleury as their dependable, every-day No. 1 goalie. But even after 727 career starts, Fleury still wants to improve.

He and Hawks goalie coach Jimmy Waite have worked on puck skills — stopping dump-ins and passing to defensemen — along with rebound control and finding the posts in morning training sessions this week.

And off the ice, Fleury’s vibrant smile and easygoing personality — contrasting sharply with his ceaseless intensity on the ice — should help steady the Hawks adjust to this season’s higher expectations.

“His energy and how he practices is also how he is off the ice,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “He’s always got a smile on his face. That helps… It will be a grind, and having those personalities can help bring the best out of everybody.”

Fleury isn’t the most talkative guy, preferring to “do it by example,” but he carries a reputation as one of the NHL’s most well-liked players for a reason.

Much like Corey Crawford, whose soft voice belied his watchful eye and keen sense of mood around the locker room, Fleury clearly knows how to keep a group humble through wins and confident through losses. He’ll be a valuable addition to the Hawks’ leadership group this year.

“If we have fun, if we feel good and we’re relaxed, to me that’s when you play your best hockey,” Fleury said. “Because if you get too tight, too serious, you overthink stuff and you squeeze your stick, and those are the [moments] where things won’t go as well. So if you can just stay relaxed and enjoy what you’re doing, I think we’re going to have some success.”

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Every Sky playoff run has featured Allie Quigley and Courtney Vandersloot.

The Sky’s first trip to the playoffs came in 2013. Then-coach Pokey Chatman had signed Quigley, and Vandersloot was in her third year in the WNBA.

The duo has seen players who were supposed to lift the organization to championship heights come and go. Sylvia Fowles and Elena Delle Donne, franchise players, left to win titles with other teams.

Through it all, Quigley and Vandersloot have remained ultra-dependable. Since ’13, the Sky have only missed the playoffs in 2017 and 2018. It’s a testament to the organization’s longest-tenured players.

“They’re ride or die,” coach/general manager James Wade said.

Quigley and Vandersloot have different leadership styles.

Past and present teammates have described Vandersloot as an emotional leader. She’s not going to say much, but she’s going to express herself through action. As Vandersloot goes, so goes the team.

Quigley is more talkative and thoughtful with her teammates. She’s the veteran who knows what to say and how to say it to each of her teammates. As one of the league’s best knockdown shooters, she’s often sharing tips on how to evade defenders.

When the Sky added Candace Parker to the mix ahead of the 2021 season, they were adding a vocal leader with a championship pedigree they desperately needed.

Parker hasn’t been the surefire answer that fans expected at the beginning of the season, largely because of unexpected roadblocks.

The team started the season battling injuries. A seven-game skid was followed by a seven-game winning streak. Wade’s changes to the starting five after the Olympic break were the last unexpected turn in a season that was expected to be the Sky’s most successful.

But this three-headed veteran monster could yet carry the team through adversity and back to the semifinals for the first time since 2016.

“We have to be at our very best to beat any team,” Vandersloot said. “We have a lot of parts, but this team looks at us to be the leaders, to be aggressive, to get everyone on the same page and make things easier. Our impact right from the very beginning needs to be at a high level.”

In their last two playoff appearances under the league’s new format, the Sky were knocked out in second-round (2019) and first-round (2020) single-elimination games.

Both seasons resulted in different learning experiences. On Thursday, when faced with an aggressive Dallas Wings offense that was slowly chipping away at their double-digit lead, the Sky did not lose their composure.

Wade saw his team’s huddles get tighter and communication get louder, and the Sky responded instead of folding. Chants of ”Sloot, there it is” filled Wintrust Arena as the Sky’s floor general took over in the last two minutes.

Parker broke several postseason records against the Wings. She moved up to sixth in WNBA playoff history with 904 points and to fourth on the all-time playoff rebounding list.

In Quigley’s 24 playoff games, she has averaged 11.3 points on 46% shooting.

The Sky will lean heavily on the trio to lead them past Fowles and the Minnesota Lynx in order to get to their first playoff series in five years. The Sky split the regular-season series against the Lynx, beating them by 16 and losing by six.

“It’s the playoffs,” Parker said. “We’re not in a series yet. We have nothing to celebrate. Playoffs start when the road team wins a game on a home floor. The playoffs will start or end for us [on Sunday].”

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Cody and Cole Silzer are twins who are getting more identical every year.

“People said as we’ve grown older we look more alike,” Cody said.

It used to be Cole had shorter hair, but, Cody said, “it’s kind of developed into the same haircut.”

That is not the only similarity between the brothers, who are two big reasons Lockport football is relevant again after a long drought.

The Porters beat Homewood-Flossmoor for the first time since 2009 in Week 4 and started 4-0 for the first time since 2004. They’re also looking for their first trip to the playoffs since 2016 and their first postseason victory since 2011.

If those items get checked off the to-do list, a good chunk of credit likely will go to the Silzers, 6-3, 250-pounders who anchor the Porters’ defensive line along with Andrew Blackburn-Forst.

George Czart took over as Lockport coach in 2019, when the Silzers were sophomores. He remembers watching them play baseball and thinking, “I’d love to see them in the weight room.”

Not that they were ever smaller than their peers. When they started playing youth football as 7-year-olds, they wound up in the tackle division. “We were too big to play flag,” Cole said.

Originally offensive linemen, the Silzers moved across the line after Czart arrived. At first they were both ends. Cole still plays end, with Blackburn-Forst — a defending state champion wrestler — next to him at nose tackle and then Cody at the other tackle.

What makes the Silzers special?

“They’re strong,” Czart said. “When they squat, they have full range of motion. They’re athletic and dynamic in their movement. And they have the mental edge, They want to be the best.”

All of those attributes help them get on college recruiters’ radar. They did the camp circuit after the spring season and had a few offers. The ones that stood out were from Eastern Illinois, which the brothers will be attending as a package deal.

“We’re happy about it,” Cole said. “Now my parents won’t have to go to two college games (every weekend).”

It’ll be nice to have a continuing return to normalcy for the Silzers, who — like everyone else — had their routines disrupted by the pandemic.

While many athletes had to improvise with school weight rooms and fitness centers off limits for months, the Silzers were able to keep working out and didn’t have to do it alone.

“It’s cool,” Cody said. “We always have a partner. We have someone to push each other with.”

There’s no shortage of motivation for the Silzers or their teammates, from the desire to bring back the glory days of a program that won back-to-back state titles in 2002-03 to one of the state’s biggest and most supportive fan bases.

The Silzers were at Huskie Stadium in DeKalb as freshmen in 2018 when Lockport played in the Preseason Prep Bowl in front of a huge crowd of supporters. The Porters lost 38-7 to Providence and finished 0-9, but Czart arrived the next year and the turnaround began.

Lockport went 4-5 in 2019 and 4-2 in the spring season, when Czart could tell good times were right around the corner.

“We just saw how good (the Silzers and other returning players) were last year as juniors,” Czart said. “People don’t know how good we’re going to be.”

Now the secret is out and Lockport fans are loving it.

“It’s crazy how many people show up at our home games,” Cody said.

“It does hype you up,” Cole added. “You don’t want to disappoint them.”

So far, there’s been no hint of that happening.

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