Joliet West, Morris football teams join forces for joint practice

Joliet West and Morris' football teams teamed up recently for a joint practice, with both coaches finding reasons to be pleased with how their squads looked.

After a summer full of hitting their own teammates, almost any football team welcomes the sight of a different team lining up across from them. That was the case Thursday, as Morris hosted Joliet West in a joint practice. The practice began with the teams splitting up to practice inside runs at one end of the field, alternating on offense and defense as well as first and second teams, while the defensive backs and wide receivers were at the other end of the field running perimeter drills.

The teams wore helmets and shoulder pads, but were outfitted in just shorts on their lower bodies. While there was contact, there were referees on the field to ensure that the contact did not get out of hand. Both coaches - Alan Thorson of Morris and Dan Tito of Joliet West - said that their main concern about the day was to come out of it healthy, which both teams did.

Following the first set of drills, the teams split again. The skill positions went 7-on-7 at one end of the field, while the linemen went to the other end of the field and did blocking drills. For a little added fun, at the end of the linemen drills, the teams split up and did a few rounds of tug-of-war.

After a water break, each offense got a chance to run plays against the opposing defense, moving the ball as they would during a game, with officials on hand to make appropriate calls. While Morris scored a couple of times, the Joliet West defense more than held its own against a Warrior offense that promises to be explosive with quarterback Marion Persich, a transfer from LaSalle-Peru, at the helm. Defensive linemen Savon Jamison and Jeremy Anderson were anchors for the Tiger defense and made it difficult for Morris to move the ball the way it would have liked.

On the other side, the Morris defense, led by last season’s Interstate Eight Conference Defensive Player of the Year Mick Smith at linebacker, made the going difficult for the Tiger offense. “We can learn a lot from going up against a program like Morris,” Tito said. “They have been successful for a long time and they do things the right way.

You can bet that if their coaches told them to be here at 8, those kids were here at 7:45. It’s a lot of little things. When they had the ball, their entire sideline was standing and cheering on the guys that were on the field.

When we had the ball, I looked over at our sideline and saw some guys kneeling and talking to each other rather than watching what was going on on the field. “I told our guys that Morris doesn’t have good football teams every year just because their mothers give birth to good football players. They do all the little things right from top to bottom, and that’s where we want to be.”

Tito was happy with how his team performed on both sides of the ball, especially considering the overall youth of his program. “Out of the 22 guys that were playing with the first team today, we had 15 that were sophomores or juniors,” he said. “It was great to get out here and see another team on the other side of the ball.

We were getting pretty tired of hitting our own guys. “I thought our defense did a real good job of flying to the ball. We’re young on both sides and today gave us some experience against a great program like we are trying to be.”

Thorson was also pleased with the day’s outcome. “Overall, I thought we were pretty good,” he said. “It was good for our guys to compete against someone different.

Our defense, which is probably where we have more inexperience, I thought performed better than our offense. Our offense was pretty good, but the defense really played well. “It’s still July

and we know we are going to get better, but it was still nice to see how we stack up against an 8A program that has been pretty solid over the last few years.”