ROWVA/Williamsfield Cougars Football: 2026 Schedule and Results

2026: 1-2 · Coach: Grant Gullstrand · Division: Lincoln Land North · Combined enrollment: 258

Two school districts, two mascots, and a third set of colours when they play together. Roughly 258 students spread across seven villages, one of which has 575 people in it.

2026 results

• Aug 21 — won 54-6 at Lewistown/Cuba/Spoon River Valley. The largest margin posted by any team in this coverage area in Week 1, from a programme that scored 214 points across nine games last season.
• Aug 28 — lost to Elmwood/Brimfield 22-8. A sharp correction against a side with a returning backfield and a coach in his 28th season.

Sept 4 — lost at Illini West 38-30. Beaten by eight at a Carthage side that is now 3-0. Two straight defeats after opening with a win.

2026 schedule

† Lincoln Land North. All 7:00 p.m.

Three names for one programme

This is not one school. It is a co-operative between two separate IHSA member districts, and each has its own identity when it plays alone.

Together they are the ROWVA-Williamsfield Cougars, in gold and maroon. Three mascots, two districts, one football team.

The acronym has grown a letter. ROWVA began as ROVA — Rio, Oneida, Victoria, Altona — and became ROWVA when Wataga joined in 1987. Before that, all five towns had their own high schools, along with Walnut Grove.

Who hosts what

The co-op handbook divides it precisely, and it is worth knowing if you are driving to a game:

At ROWVA in Oneida: boys and girls basketball, track and field, cross country, football and cheer, competition cheer, wrestling — plus the junior high equivalents.

At Williamsfield: baseball, volleyball, softball, boys and girls golf — plus junior high baseball, softball, volleyball and girls basketball.

Governance runs through an Advisory Board of two board members and the administrative teams from each district, meeting in December, March and June.

The one-point game

The defining moment in this programme’s history happened fifty years ago, and it still hurts.

In 1975-76, playing as Oneida (ROVA), the boys basketball team went 28-3 under coach Bob Meredith and reached the Class A state championship game.

They beat Bloomington Central Catholic 49-46 in the quarterfinal and Lawrenceville 77-70 in the semifinal. Then they lost the final to Mt. Pulaski, 59-58.

Two players made the all-tournament team: Dave Johnson, a 6-foot-8 junior who scored 105 points across four tournament games, and 5-foot-11 junior Steve Holmes, who added 42.

It remains the only state-finals trophy either district has won in any sport.

The football record

Oneida and ROWVA teams have qualified for the IHSA playoffs 21 times — 1974, then a run through the late eighties and early nineties, and on into the 2020s. The most recent came in 2023-24 at 9-3, following 6-5 in 2022-23.

All-time the programme is 340-346-9. Dale Grawe coached it for 25 seasons at .593. Grant Gullstrand has had the job since 2019.

Williamsfield’s own high-water mark came in 1996-97, when its boys basketball team reached a super-sectional — the Elite Eight. That programme is 419-323 all-time, much of it under Robert Anderson, who coached for 26 years.

Volleyball is the story now

ROWVA/Williamsfield went 32-7 last season and won the Lincoln Trail Conference at 11-1.

No programme at any school in this coverage area, in any sport, came close to that record. The next-best area volleyball mark was sixteen wins.

Williamsfield also took a Class 1A regional title in 2026, and the co-op won a scholastic bowl regional the same year.

The 2026 volleyball team lost to United 2-1 on August 27. More on why they are the story of the fall →

The towns

Oneida, population 696, was founded in 1854 and sits inside the Galesburg micropolitan area. Williamsfield, population 575, was laid out by E.B. Purcell in 1888 and named for a Santa Fe Railroad contractor called Williams. It is about twenty miles east of Galesburg.

Between them, the districts also serve Rio, Wataga, Victoria and Altona.

From Oneida

Kid Mohler played second base for the Washington Senators between 1891 and 1899. Two Illinois legislators came from the town as well — A.T. McMaster and Donald L. Moffitt, who was also Oneida’s mayor from 1972 to 1975.

We have not been able to confirm high school attendance for any of them, so we will say “from Oneida” rather than claim them as alumni.

The coaching records

The longest tenures across both districts are worth listing, because in schools this size a coach who stays becomes the programme. Dale Grawe gave ROWVA 25 years of football at .593. Bob Meredith coached boys basketball for 23 years at .620, including the 1976 state final. Vinton Pease went .711 across fourteen years of girls basketball — the best mark at either school. John Clark coached baseball for eleven at .657.

At Williamsfield, Robert Anderson coached boys basketball for 26 years.

Two conferences at once

One further wrinkle: Williamsfield is listed in both the Inter-County Athletic Conference and the Lincoln Trail Conference, depending on the sport. ROWVA competes in the Lincoln Trail, and the football co-op plays in Lincoln Land North.

Williamsfield also had a separate football co-op with Galva beginning in 2009-10, and a three-school “Mid-County” arrangement appears in some records. If you are trying to trace a result from the last twenty years, expect to find it filed under at least four different names.

Send us results

We cannot be at every stadium and every gym. If you have a score, a stat line or a photo from this programme, send it in — we post them as they come and we correct errors the same day.

Records via the IHSA and MaxPreps. Co-op structure via the ROWVA-Williamsfield co-operative handbook. Lincoln Land North standings →