After the 2-2 start and a blowout loss to Bloomington, Coach Fincham and the Normal West Wildcats “flipped the switch” to start a 5-game winning streak.
The team looks to continue that wave into the playoffs.
Saturday, Nov. 2nd at 1:00 P.M., the Wildcats take on Simeon High School to kick off the 2024 IHSA State Playoffs.
“I expect the same type of team we played last year. They have multiple Division 1 athletes and they are big kids, so they are going to be strong and athletic,” Fincham said.
Fincham says he wants his players to play with the same intensity as last year and stick to what they have been doing in this five-game win streak.
There have been two standout players who have “flipped the switch” with this 5 game-winning streak.
One of those players is Cooper Temples, a senior who has been playing both sides of the ball now and is dominating by making tough tackles on defense and running in touchdowns on the offense.
“Cooper has stood out to me the most, maybe a coincidence or not but ever since we started to play him on defense, as well as starting to play him more at quarterback, we started to hit our stride. Scoring a lot more points and making big stops on defense,” Fincham noted.
The other standout player is Keagan Brown, a junior defensive end who has been dominating the outside, stepping up in Briar Leenerman’s absence.
“Keagan stepped up when we lost Briar, and we needed that from a player like him. We needed a guy to play his role, and he’s been unblockable for the most part,” Fincham added.
Physicality has also been a big part of this stride.
Fincham mentioned that with these experienced guys getting hurt, the younger players on varsity had had to step up and play at a high-impact level that they have never played before.
So, at practice, coaches have been working to teach these players to become more physical, and it has had a huge impact on winning.
“We just felt like we needed to teach it a little bit more and practice it, and it’s kind of been something that’s been a staple for us as we move to the playoffs,” Fincham added.
Overall, this team is young and still has super high hopes coming into these next years of Normal West football.
The two underclassmen players that jumped out to Fincham were offensive weapons, Cody Muhlbauer and Maliq Givens.
They want these two, who have seen varsity ball for a while now, to communicate with the sophomores and juniors in order for the younger players to learn from their experience.
“They just need to communicate with them and provide their experiences, so that they don’t have to go through the same trials, and tribulations that they did. So that way, they have a quicker learning curve, and we can hit our stride faster next year,” Finchman explained.
In addition to key players stepping up, the Wildcats have flipped their momentum, and it started with physicality at practice.
They are now hoping to keep this switch on and win big against Simeon on Saturday, 1 P.M.at Wildcat Stadium.
