Week 1 Recap: The Preseason Order Lasted Exactly One Night
Updated Sunday: West Central’s suspended game has been completed, and stat lines have since been published for several Week 1 games — including a 369-yard passing night from United’s Kellen Boone. Both are reflected below.
If you had drawn up the Galesburg area’s Week 1 results from last year’s records, you would have got almost every one of them backwards.
The two programs that finished 2025 with a combined five wins — ROWVA/Williamsfield and Abingdon-Avon — won by a combined 77 points on Friday night. The program that went 10-2 and reached the Class 3A quarterfinals lost by two. The area finished 3-4, and the wins came from the last places anyone would have looked.
Player of the Week: Lars Bergren, Monmouth-Roseville
120 rushing yards. 126 receiving yards. Two touchdowns. One of them from 97 yards out.
Bergren did nearly everything a high school football player can do in a single night, and Monmouth-Roseville still lost by two. His 97-yard touchdown catch from Kane Johnson in the fourth quarter pulled the Titans within 24-22 with a chance to tie. The two-point conversion did not come.
Awarding this to a player on the losing side is unusual. A 246-all-purpose-yard night in a two-point game is more unusual.
Game by game
ROWVA/Williamsfield 54, LCSRV 6
The most emphatic result of the night, from a team that won two games all of last season. The Cougars went to Lewistown and scored 54 points on a program that finished 2025 winless.
Grant Gullstrand’s team ended last season with a win over Abingdon-Avon and has now won consecutive games spanning two seasons. In a 48-qualifier playoff era, a 2-7 team that starts 1-0 is a genuinely different proposition.
Abingdon-Avon 41, West Hancock 12
This was supposed to be the hardest opener any local team drew. West Hancock went 6-4 last season and made the playoffs. A-Town went 3-6 and lost four games by five points or fewer.
The Tornadoes won by 29.
Rick Quinn’s return to the sideline could hardly have started better, and the group of all-conference returners — Tre Kenon, Carson Stenger, Ryker Darst and lineman Cole Sheckler, with Jamil Johnson at quarterback — looks like the area’s most improved unit through one week.
Erie-Prophetstown 24, Monmouth-Roseville 22
The best game of the night, played nearly two hours late after thunderstorms rolled through.
Monmouth-Roseville scored first on an eight-yard touchdown, led 16-12 in the second quarter, and then watched Erie-Prophetstown score with eight seconds left in the half to take an 18-16 lead into the break. The third quarter produced nothing from either side. E-P stretched it to 24-16 in the fourth before Bergren’s 97-yard touchdown made it a two-point game.
Two failed two-point conversions decided it, and pre-snap penalties on the decisive attempt did the damage. Landon Montroy added 89 yards on 19 carries and a touchdown. Lane Decker had a 70-yard kickoff return and a 39-yard touchdown catch for Erie-Prophetstown.
The Titans host Rockridge on Friday. They have not beaten the Rockets since 2021.
Dunlap 48, Galesburg 21
Better than last year’s 44-0, and that is the honest way to frame it. Galesburg scored three touchdowns against a program with an enrollment 277 students larger, having managed none against the same opponent twelve months ago.
Shawn Hickey’s third season starts 0-1, with a home opener against 0-9 Limestone on Friday that is the most winnable game on the schedule before the Western Big 6 slate begins.
Macomb 42, Knoxville 14
A hard first assignment for Marty Turner. Macomb went 9-2 last season and finished second in the Lincoln Trail-Prairieland Large division, and the margin reflected it.
Knoxville hosts Rushville-Industry on Friday — a 7-3 team last year, but one that graduated heavily and is rebuilding.
Bureau Valley 36, United 27
The disappointment of the night. Both teams went 1-8 last season and United returned, by Andrew Goodwin’s own accounting, 90 percent of its offensive production and 70 percent of its defensive production.
And then the stat line arrived, and it reframed the night entirely: Kellen Boone threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns, and ran for a 47-yard score. That is not a 1-8 team’s quarterback. Goodwin’s claim about returning production looks not just credible but understated.
This game was also suspended by lightning — halted at 8:24 p.m. after two minutes of the second half, restarted at 10:56 p.m. once the IHSA approved it, and finished at 11:55 p.m. Bureau Valley handled the restart better: Dane Stewart ran for 101 yards and two touchdowns, and Blake Foster scored twice on the ground before catching the go-ahead 12-yard touchdown from Aiden Litherland.
Giving up 36 is still the problem to solve. But an offense that scored 27 with a 369-yard passer is a different proposition from the one that won a single game last year. Illini West visits Monmouth on Friday.
West Central 32, Flanagan/Cornell/Woodland 12
The only local team to finish Week 1 with a completed win it had to wait for. The Heat led 24-12 when thunderstorms suspended play at halftime Friday; the game resumed Saturday afternoon and West Central took the second half 8-0.
That is a conference win to open the season, behind a returning core that includes Aidan Garner — who ran for 238 yards and three touchdowns against this same FCW program a year ago. Jason Kirby’s team is 1-0 for a third straight season.
Three things we learned
- Last year’s records told us very little. The two teams with the worst 2025 marks among Friday’s winners — ROWVA/Williamsfield and Abingdon-Avon — won by 48 and 29. The 10-2 team lost. One week is one week, but the preseason order is already scrambled.
- The Western Big 6 had a miserable night. The league went 2-6, with only Geneseo and Quincy winning, and Alleman forfeiting because it has no varsity team. Galesburg’s conference schedule may be less punishing than it looked in July.
- The expanded playoff field is already doing work. ROWVA/Williamsfield and Abingdon-Avon are 1-0 with a bar of roughly four or five wins instead of a hard five. Both are live in a way they would not have been last season.
Where everyone stands
| Team | Record | Week 2 |
|---|---|---|
| ROWVA/Williamsfield | 1-0 | Elmwood/Brimfield (H) |
| Abingdon-Avon | 1-0 | at Annawan-Wethersfield |
| West Central | 1-0 | at Blue Ridge/DeLand-Weldon, 6:30 |
| Galesburg | 0-1 | Limestone (H) |
| Monmouth-Roseville | 0-1 | Rockridge (H) |
| Knoxville | 0-1 | Rushville-Industry (H) |
| United | 0-1 | Illini West (H) |
Next Friday
Six of seven area teams are home, and Monmouth-Roseville draws Rockridge — a 10-1 team last season, picked first in the Three Rivers Rock Division, and the side that handed the Titans their only regular-season loss a year ago. Full Week 2 preview →
Scores confirmed against WMOI/WRAM, WRMJ, Shaw Local, MaxPreps and FOX. The West Central final is per MaxPreps; no outlet had published it at the time of writing and we are seeking confirmation from the school. Stat lines for the Monmouth-Roseville game via WMOI. If you have stats, photos or a correction from any Week 1 game, send them in — we post them and we correct same day.
