Oswego East off to good start

Updated: September 7, 2011 8:46PM

In its eight-year existence, Oswego East’s football program is embarking on its second climb toward its first playoff appearance, four years removed from a season in which the team finished one game out of the postseason.

In the first three years of the program, it looked as if the Wolves were making a natural progression from zero wins in their first season to 4-5 in three years. Expectations were high heading into the 2008 campaign, only to fall short with a 2-7 record. That was followed with another 0-9 mark in 2009 before bouncing back with a 3-6 record last year.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the uptick in performance this year and last is the Wolves are now finding star-caliber players on both sides of the ball. And, the lower levels of the program are becoming more successful, and those players expect to carry that over to the varsity field.

Although the team is still searching for its first signature win over a highly-regarded opponent (Oswego or otherwise), optimism is higher now than it’s been since the summer of 2008.

Rightfully so, as the Wolves (2-0) begin Southwest Prairie Conference play Friday night at home against Plainfield South (1-1) after non-conference victories over Rich South and Oak Lawn.

“It’s one of the greatest feelings being the first team to go 2-0 in Oswego East history,” senior quarterback Dakoda Skenandore said. “It’s given us a confidence boost going into (Plainfield South) knowing we have a very good year ahead of us.”

Skenandore has seen this second progression of the program take place first hand, as he began his varsity career as a sophomore during the winless season of 2009.

“This team has come together real well,” he said. “We all believe in each other. That’s the biggest thing that’s the main difference (from the last two years).”

Skenandore is an effective passer (18-for-26, 191 yards) who spreads the ball around (five different receivers caught passes last week) — a key ingredient to balancing out a run-based offensive attack that for the second straight year has produced an exciting player to watch.

That player is junior running back Chris Cooper, who at 5-foot-7 and 175 pounds is far from prototypical in terms of size, but he has taken over nicely for O.J. Graham, who rewrote the Wolves record book last year.

Cooper has burst onto the scene with 361 yards rushing and five scores, giving the Wolves a player other teams have to prepare for.

“I really didn’t expect this,” Cooper said. “I worked hard over the summer so I could be a starting running back, but I want to keep working at this so I can be better. I’m really looking forward to having a target on my shoulders — I’m going to step up to the challenge.”

Helping him do that is a veteran offensive line of Tony Pendleton (6-3, 305), Anthony Pendleton (6-1, 285), Killian Mills (5-10, 265), Dimitri Batitsas (5-8, 200) and Mark McCallum (6-0, 210), who, along with tight end Ryan Kossakowski (6-2, 215), have not only given the Wolves an identity, but a winning attitude.

“If you look at where we were last year, although we only won three games, I felt we took a huge step as a football program,” said head coach Mark Green, who has been at the helm from the beginning. “Not only on the varsity, but our freshmen were 7-2 and our sophomores had a good year after a successful freshman year.

“You just saw that positive growth in the program. More than anything, there’s an expectation — our kids expect to compete, expect to be in the football game and they expect to win. It’s the mindset, the attitude they have and it was developed last year with a good senior group that worked their tail off and it carried over to this year.

“They want to be successful. It’s worked its way through the program.”

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