The Carlinville High School (CHS) football team inspired a great deal of pride within the Carlinville community this past season, finishing with an overall record of 12-2, including a run all the way to the Class 3A state championship game.
The season began with three victories over Roxana, Vandalia and Greenville. Then in week four, the Cavaliers suffered a narrow 25-23 loss to Pana. Head coach Chad Easterday, a Blackburn College graduate, reflected on the defeat and commented that “it might have been the best thing that ever happened to us, to be honest … the loss in week four identified some stuff that we needed to work on, both as players and coaches.” Junior nose tackle and left guard Brian Golbricht stated, “We just realized that we didn’t play one of our best games [and] we moved past that.”
After recovering from an early loss, the Cavaliers finished their regular season with five straight victories before heading into the playoffs. CHS began with a strong 76-19 first round victory over East Alton Wood River. In the quarterfinals against Williamsville, the Cavaliers pulled out a 42-35 victory. Golbricht attributed the win to good defensive stops and said, “We really went heavy with the passing that game and it worked out for us.” The Cavaliers went on to beat Newton in the semifinals 32-21 before edging out rival North Mac with a 27-21 win in the conference final. “That game was really intense … our defense was really the key through everything,” Golbricht reflected.
Throughout the season and upon advancing to play in the state championship game, the Cavaliers received a great deal of support from their fans in the community. It had been 23 years since the last time CHS advanced to the state championship game. Coach Easterday confirmed that 700 tickets were sold for the championship game and that “the amount of support from our community was just overwhelming.” Golbricht added that Carlinville fans “just kept coming and coming [to the games] and I think that helped us out a lot.”
The Cavaliers received a police escort to and from the championship game at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois, on Nov. 25, 2016. Despite a 43-0 loss to IC Catholic Prep of Elmhurst, Illinois, the Cavaliers and the Carlinville community celebrated the progress of CHS football under Easterday. Easterday has been a part of the CHS coaching staff for the last 20 years and took over as head coach in 2008. Since then, the Cavaliers’ record has gradually improved and they have accumulated a 71-28 record over the last nine seasons.
Easterday attended Blackburn College, where he majored in chemistry and education, played football from 1992-1994 and graduated in 1997. “I wouldn’t trade my experience at Blackburn for anything,” he said.