Althoff and Belleville East set to renew an old city rivalry back at Township Stadium (original) (raw)
High school football Friday night will harken back to autumn evenings past, when Belleville’s three high school teams squared off annually for city bragging rights at historical Township Stadium.
Two of those local schools will renew an old rivalry back at the place where the likes Rusty Lisch and Hickey Thompson made themselves local legends.
Kickoff between Class 8A Belleville East and 1A Althoff will be at 7 p.m. It’s been 29 years since the Lancers and Crusaders last faced each other on the gridiron.
“We’re crazy excited about it,” said Althoff head coach Austin Frazier, a graduate of the Belleville Catholic high school. “I told the players that ... 90 percent of our (coaching) staff all played old Township Stadium or a couple of my coaches played at Lindenwood. That field, it has our staff, it has ties to the schools, and ties the community and all the great teams and great stories.”
The city championship series came to an end when Edwardsville joined East and Belleville West in the Southwestern Conference in 1996. Althoff’s three-time state champion coach Glenn Schott said the addition forced a scheduling change that would pit his Crusaders against the Lancers and Maroons on consecutive weeks and leave his players battered and bruised for competition against programs their own size. So in 1997, Althoff dropped East from the schedule.
Frazier, who frequently uses his Facebook account to share memories of his playing days and to highlight other alumni of the Crusaders’ sports programs, looks forward to reliving a Belleville tradition Friday night.
“Being able to start that story again, we’re pretty excited to have the opportunity,” he said.
East coach Michael Harrison is hearing the same things from the Lancer alumni. For his players, though, he says it’ll be just another Friday night.
“A lot of that extra incentive and motivation and nostalgia will be really cool for everybody else but for us it’s more about playing a football game on Friday night,” he said. “It’s pretty cool for our alums around Belleville, they’re talking about and they’re all excited about it.”
The intra-city matchup between Belleville West and Althoff continued annually until 2013. West won the final game between the two schools 53-20 in 2013. Any reboot of the traditional rivalry game won’t happen for at least four more seasons – if at all – because West’s schedule is set through 2027, according to Athletic Director Joe Muniz.
In the interim, Township Stadium has undergone a major overhaul which was initiated when Lindenwood University moved into the former West campus. In 2012, the university invested $2.3 million in revamping the old facility, an Art Deco-style concrete stadium built by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.
Renovations included demolishing the south-side grandstand and press box to make space for a large scoreboard, and installing the now infamous maroon-and-gray striped artificial surface which, while controversial locally, brought national media attention to the small startup college program.
The heavily “turtle-backed” playing field, which encouraged water drainage but made seeing from one sideline to the other difficult, also was leveled.
Althoff continued to use Township Stadium – which was the home field to all three Belleville schools – until a new on-campus stadium was built around George Martz Field in 2017.
“We played there a lot of years and really the Old Township Stadium when they had the bleachers on the other side with the press box and field as one coach told me ‘this is a running field, not a passing field because you’re going downhill,’” Schott said. “That’s really the old stadium that I remember.”
The Crusaders and Lancers will be on turf of a more natural hue Friday.
Southwest Illinois College resurfaced the field with green turf in 2023 as the community college and city of Belleville worked jointly to develop the area into an education and training center known as the Southwestern Illinois Justice & Workforce Development Campus. The new turf also bears the city’s logo at midfield.
“I know that (soccer coach) Juergen Huettner and SWIC now put a nice new turf in, so let’s see what happens,” said Schott. “It should be a good ballgame, I think.”
Belleville East wide receiver Kyle Henry is tackled as he reaches for a pass during a game against the Pekin Dragons on Sept. 6, 2024. Joshua Carter Belleville News-Democrat
SIZING UP THE LANCERS
Belleville East, a two-time Class 8A playoff qualifier, comes into Friday’s game at 2-0 after pulling off an exciting 28-21overtime win over Pekin at Charlie Woodford Field last Friday night.
East has scored 58 points in two games while the defense has allowed just 36 points.
On offense, the Lancers are led in the backfield by junior running back Jaedon Beamon, who has rushed for 184 yards and three touchdowns. Beamon is averaging 6.3 yards per carry.
East’s sophomore quarterback Kingston Jones has connected on 59% of his passes and has four touchdowns with two interceptions. His top target is fellow sophomore James Johnson Jr., who has 171 yards receiving on eight catches and three touchdowns. He is averaging 21.4 yards per reception.
Defensively, East looks to senior inside linebacker Kadin Sabree, senior defensive back Pierre Marks, and senior defensive lineman Jonathan Rulo as its big playmakers.
Sabree, a transfer from Kansas City, has 25 total tackles, four tackles for a loss, a sack and an interception. Marks also has been an active defender with 21 total tackles. Rulo has 18 total tackles, five tackles for loss and a fumble recovery.
In this 2017 file photo, Crusader Richard Cosey carries the ball during a game at the former Lindenwood University football stadium, which also was used by Althoff Catholic High School for several years. The university had replaced its grass with maroon and white Jimmy J Simmons
AN ALTHOFF ANALYSIS
Althoff (2-0) was a Class 1A quarterfinalist in 2023 and looks for its third straight win to start this season.
Offensively, the Crusaders are led by dynamic multi-purpose senior running back Dierre Hill Jr. Hill, who is bound for the University of Oregon next year, and has scored seven touchdowns already through two weeks, five of them on the ground. Hill is averaging a gaudy 22.7 yards per carry with 285 yards from scrimmage.
Junior quarterback Jayden Ellington is hitting big plays through the air to senior receivers Charleston Coldon and Kylin Jordan. Coldon, who is verbally committed to Boston College, is averaging 31.7 yards per catch while Jordan has a 32.3 yard per catch average.
The Crusaders are led on defense by senior linebacker Drake Mosley (14 total tackles, 3 tackles for loss, one sack, two fumble recoveries), senior defensive back Baron Vaughn (13 total tackles, two sacks), senior linebacker Cooper Zimmer (11 total tackles, one sack), and Missouri recruit and senior defensive lineman Jason Dowell (10 total tackles, five tackles for loss, two sacks).
Althoff Catholic has outscored opponents 102-14 in two games.
Belleville News-Democrat reporter Teri Maddox and Editor Todd Eschman contributed to this story.
This story was originally published September 13, 2024, 5:30 AM.