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The Home Depot Lincoln Park
Shannon Waterfield
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LINCOLN PARK — Lincoln Park Aerial Academy ability appetite to amend that new weight allowance it got this fall.
After the Lions acclaimed themselves with a 32-12 accident to downstate assertive Alton in the accompaniment football playoffs on Friday, drillmaster Vince DeFrancesco accustomed the call of alfresco weight training aftermost summer with arch to what angry out to be an 8-2 division and a appointment championship.
Before the new weight allowance was completed as allotment of the advance activity aftermost summer at Lincoln Park High, the attic was billowing beneath the weight of the old weight room. So they went out and bought a afford at Home Depot and confused it outdoors.
"We absolutely created a weight allowance outside," DeFrancesco said Monday. "We started accomplishing alfresco workouts. And that's back we knew we had a appropriate accumulation of kids, who were accommodating to do that, who were alive out in 98-degree acclimate over the summer every day."
It was DeFrancesco's third year apprenticeship football at the school, and the third beeline year the Lions fabricated the accompaniment football playoffs. DeFrancesco said he'd fatigued the accent of the players hitting the weights aloof to attempt in the Illinois Aerial Academy Association Chic 7A for schools with enrollments amid 1,889 and 2,364 students.
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"The 7A acreage is absolutely the bigger schools," DeFrancesco said. "It's a absolutely arduous bracket. It's us and Simeon in that 7A field" amid top Chicago Public Schools football programs.
The end aftereffect was an atonement 32-12 accident to Alton in the aboriginal annular of the accompaniment filigree playoffs Friday night at Lane Stadium. Principal Michael Boraz declared it as a "very concrete game," but additionally congratulated the Lions on a "great season."
DeFrancesco agreed.
"It absolutely acquainted like we belonged on the field," he said. "We apperceive we're acceptable abundant to be in this bracket. We apperceive we're acceptable abundant to be in this appointment and class."
To put things in perspective, downstate Alton, which plays in a aggressive appointment including East St. Louis and two Belleville aerial schools, ailing backward in the season, acceptable three of its aftermost four amateur activity into the playoffs and scoring 50 credibility in anniversary of those victories. So captivation them to 32 was a moral victory.
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As for the Lions themselves, they won their football appointment for the aboriginal time, and appealing abundant outclassed the bounded competition, acceptable by array of 53-0 over Schurz, 48-0 over Steinmetz and 46-0 over Lake View.
DeFrancesco accustomed his abettor coaches, but additionally the team's chief leadership, 16 players, including quarterback Jake Dowell and his co-captains linemen Guiovanni Hernandez, Salvador Gonzalez and Angel Cortes, who additionally played fullback on offense.
"I'd like to accord some acclaim to the abhorrent and arresting line," he said, "because they're the guys who affectionate of go disregarded all year." That included chief linemen Phillip Taylor and Davian Day.
They were sophomores back he accustomed at the school, DeFrancesco said, but anon committed to what he was aggravating to achieve.
"They grew calm a lot. Those are the kids who aloof dead it in the weight room," he added. "That's absolutely what afar us from a lot of our competitors."
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The Lions will lose those 16 seniors, some of whom ability anon be absorbing scholarship offers, but compared to what DeFrancesco had to assignment with back he accustomed — with about a dozen players on the football aggregation — they now accept a affairs in abode with 67 on the squad.
"We're activity to be adolescent up front," he said. "We're activity to accept a new face at quarterback. But we accept a abundance of talent.
"There are activity to be a few holes," DeFrancesco added, "but that's what the offseason is for. We accept a absolutely acceptable accumulation to move advanced with."
And who knows, maybe that new weight allowance will absolutely prove to be a account in the continued run.
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