Attitude adjustment turned Oswego’s season around

Updated: October 12, 2011 7:48PM

One game — 48 minutes — does not a season make, but in Oswego’s case 17 minutes could have broken it.

Up 41-18 over Marian Central Catholic with five minutes left in the third quarter the opening week of the season, the Panthers looked to be on the way to a start they envisioned.

“We definitely had big expectations going into the season,” senior running back Josh Mapalo said.

Then, in 17 minutes, everything turned on its head.

The offense couldn’t score and turned the ball over. The defense couldn’t make a stop. Suddenly, shockingly, the Panthers were on the wrong end of a 47-41 loss as the Hurricanes rallied with 29 unanswered points over the final 17 minutes.

“We had that game,” Mapalo said. “I don’t know what happened. We let up in the second half. Now, when we look back on it they’re a really good, quality team and we could’ve beat them, so where does that put us?”

That led into a 34-14 loss at Waubonsie Valley in Week 2, and just like that, the Panthers were facing the same 0-2 hole they were at the start of 2010.

“At the beginning we had a lot of high hopes, we’re ranked 24th (at the start of the year by the Sun-Times) and we let that get to our head,” senior linebacker Billy Baker said. “Then reality hit us. We had to come together as one.”

An attitude adjustment was needed, and head coach Dave Keely and his staff instilled it heading into Week 3 against Romeoville.

No more looking ahead.

No more buying the hype.

Clichés are born out of truth, so Keely preached it: Win the week. Go 1-0. It’s all you can do.

Rather than turn on one another, the team bought in.

“We started breaking walls down,” Baker said.

Added Mapalo: “It made us play more as a team because it showed us that in order to win games we’ll have to play together. I think everyone found that out. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. The 1-0 (mindset), it’s a great thing we did this year. We’re less stressed. We’re worried about one game at a time, and that’s how it should be.”

The result has been five consecutive weekly victories, and the Panthers are playoff eligible with two weeks to play. The Southwest Prairie Conference championship is still up for grabs. So is the chance at a home game to open the playoffs.

You won’t hear that from anyone off Route 71, however.

“We as a team, we looked back and said, “Where do we really want to go?,” Keely said of the change in mindset. “We dropped the first two. Granted, 14-0 and would be great, but let’s just go one game at a time, let’s get to 1-0 and see where the next week takes us. If you keep building on that, then good things will keep happening to us.”

This week, on the road at 5-2 Plainfield Central, is the first time the Panthers are playing a team with a winning record since Waubonsie. Oswego has cleaned up against the teams it should have — Romeoville, Oswego East, Plainfield East, Plainfield North, Plainfield South are a combined 12-23 — so this week will be a good barometer of how far the team has come.

The wins haven’t always been pretty — just seven-point margins over the crosstown Wolves and Plainfield East — but they are wins nonetheless.

Compared to last season in which the Panthers lost four games by a score or less, Mapalo said practices this year are sharper and faster, and there is less “screwing around” leading to victories in tight games.

“We’re ready,” he said. “We know not to give up.”

That has translated to the defensive side of the ball as well. While that unit certainly isn’t OK with allowing 30.2 points per game, they’ve moved past hanging their heads on busted plays. Instead, they are stepping up to make stops and giving the offense another opportunity to take or extend a lead.

“A lot of times we were confused or hear the wrong play and then we’d go to the wrong spot and weren’t making the big plays,” Baker said of the first two weeks. “Now, as the season has progressed we know each others’ role and it just clicks. During the week of prep we make sure no one’s confused, that everyone knows what we’re doing and now we’re going into games more confident and flying around the football. That’s how good things happen.”

Part of what’s turned the defensive unit’s mindset around is that they’re never out of it, no matter what may have happened in the first half or first three quarters. It’s just about making the one stop when you need it, and over the last five weeks, that’s been happening — playing 48 minutes, and going 1-0.

“We’re starting to play better football collectively,” Keely said. “The two teams we played (at the start) are 13-1 right now so it’s not like we didn’t play anybody the first two games we had this year. The competition we played is very good and we’re reaping the benefits of it. It would’ve been nice to have a win or two out of that but that was not the case, but it was two great games to build from and develop from.”

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