It’s in the attitude

Danny Sarillo (from left), Cole Connington, Alex Lyons and Rich Kersten are the only returning starters this season from Cary-Grove’s IHSA Class 6A state championship football team. The players have preserved the Trojans’ win-at-all-costs mentality. (Travis Haughton – thaughton@nwherald.com)

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CARY – The mentality never changes.

Regardless of what happens this season on the football field, Cary-Grove’s four returning starters from last season’s IHSA Class 6A state championship team want the unyielding winning attitude embedded in the minds of the incoming players hoping to fill 18 starting positions vacated by title winners.

If the Trojans maintain that win-at-all-costs mentality, what Alex Lyons, Danny Sarillo, Rich Kersten and Cole Connington have been working to preserve since last November should remain intact.

This year’s team is the new-look Trojans, but the philosophy won’t change thanks in part to the four players remaining from C-G’s perfect 2009 season.

“Every year you lose some players,” said Kersten, who started at defensive end and offensive tackle last season, “but the reason we can reload is because it’s just a part of our game. Everyone is in the weight room, everyone is working hard because we know we’re not settling for less than average. That won’t cut it.”

Teams usually lose key players to graduation, but the Trojans’ mass exodus – 18 starters between offense and defense – after last season is the program’s largest ever, coach Bruce Kay said.

It made Sarillo, Kersten, Lyons and Connington more aware than ever that a lot of the responsibility for this season would fall by default to them.

They never stopped their rotations in the weight room. Knowing they would have to compete again this summer to keep their starting positions, they trained all year and relayed the feeling of winning a state title to the players who will start their varsity careers this fall.

“Now we have to get all those other kids up with us and be leaders to them,” Connington said. “It’s not like what those kids have been doing is something new. ... Every year, long before the state championship team, we’ve been working hard. That’s what we have to do this year, too.”

C-G was so dominant last season – the Trojans outscored their opponents 620-135 – that the second-string players racked up plenty of playing time and should fit easily into the picture this season, Connington noted.

Those second-string players are spending time this summer at camps competing with Lyons, Connington, Kersten and Sarillo for their starting positions, and the pressure has made all four players further respect their situations and their veteran status.

Their experience can’t be taken away, but their rank on the field can.

“It’s going to be very competitive,” C-G coach Bruce Kay said. “This is going to be the type of team that will improve every week. When you have a lot of players coming back you never know how good you’re going to get.

“These players understand that [they] might have the job today, but it might be gone tomorrow.”

Lyons will try to earn the starting quarterback position, making a switch from free safety and giving him the possibility of starting on both offense and defense in two years. Sarillo is trying to protect his starting strong safety position, Connington his starting tight end position and Karsten his starting spots at both defensive end and offensive tackle.

Being the four returners guarantees them nothing save a jersey.

“Other than being a leader, it’s the same as last year,” Sarillo said. “It comes down to hard work.”