Wauconda doubles down on playoff goal

A "doubles" machine will take a swing at a "triple."

Wauconda's football team has never been to the state playoffs three years in a row, but the Bulldogs can achieve that feat this season with a group that includes identical twins Andrew and Matthew Nolan and Andry and Hendry Nevski.

All four players are seniors who have been on varsity since sophomore year.

"As a team, I think we're really embracing (making the playoffs for the third straight year)," said Andrew Nolan, a tight end/defensive end. "Not only making it to the playoffs, but also winning a game. A lot of kids on our team already have playoff experience, but a lot of us want a little more than just making it."

Wauconda has put together back-to-back 5-4 regular seasons, losing in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs to Montini in 2015 and Antioch last fall. Last year, the Bulldogs won their last three games of the regular season after a 1-3 start. The previous year, they survived a 1-4 start by winning four in a row to secure a postseason berth.

"We've been able to come back and fight through adversity," Andrew Nolan said. "But this year we're really looking to step up more and get into the playoffs with more than just a 5-4 record."

The Bulldogs know it won't be easy, again. They open their ninth season under head coach Dave Mills with their annual "R-B" doubleheader. They visit Richmond-Burton (6-4 last season), before hosting Riverside-Brookfield (7-3) the following Friday night. Northern Lake County Conference play opens with perennial county powers Antioch (home) and Lakes (road) in Weeks 3 and 4, respectively.

"I think the key is consistently playing hard week in and week out," said Matthew Nolan, who plays linebacker and tight end. "We need to keep watching film, put the same effort into each team that we play against and go hard in practice. As long as we come out with that fire every game and not have it be a week where we're just not feeling it, we're going to make that playoffs a third year in a row.

"It's going to continue the culture that we've been building at Wauconda over the past two years."

Andrew Nolan (6-1, 220) and his double Matthew (6-2, 210) provide rugged, talented targets for senior quarterback Andrew Saccameno, who got starts last season when Antonio Acosta was hurt.

"He's shown some great promise,"Mills said. "He's reading and running our offense pretty well. He understands, and this is his fourth year in it. So that's all positive stuff going for us."

Junior Chris Carlsen returns on the offensive line. Andry Nevski is back to run the ball after missing last season with a torn ACL suffered in the preseason.

"He and his brother are both strong," Mills said of the Nevsky twins. "They're monsters."

The running-back group also includes seniors Sonny Piccolo and Chris Ochoa and junior move-in Cameron Francis.

"I'm confident that our running game is going to be pretty similar to last year," Mills said. "We get our yards."

That said, the Bulldogs need to replace workhorse Jacob Bicknase, who carried the ball a whopping 237 times for 1,574 yards and 15 touchdowns last season.

"We have a really balanced running-back corps this season," Matthew Nolan said. "Everyone's going to pick up what 'JB' did."

Hendry Nevski, the Nolan brothers, lineman Carlsen, middle linebacker Oscar Acosta and DBs Joey Schmidt and Kyle Meyer are among the veterans on defense. It's a unit that graduated all-conference performers Tyler Stankiewicz, Alex Machon, Kenyon Rejczyk and Mike Turzynski.

"We got some juniors starting (on defense), but they're looking really good," Matthew Nolan said. "We're younger, but I don't think experience will be an issue."

"We've got some talent (on both sides of the ball)," Mills said. "We're just trying to figure out a couple of replacements. We lost some pretty good kids last year, but we had the same talk a year ago. We'll be a little younger than we were a year ago, but we got some nice seniors mixing in. We're just trying to find our chemistry. I'm very optimistic that we're going to be a pretty good team this year."

That's become common. The Bulldogs flirted with a playoff berth in both 2013 and 2014, going 4-5 in each season. They went to the playoffs in 2012 with, of course, a 5-4 record.

"We're creating some things," Mills said. "We're getting there. We're just trying to build that tradition."