{"id":223323,"date":"2025-09-13T10:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223323\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T10:32:10","slug":"shg-beats-jacksonville-on-road-in-week-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223323\/","title":{"rendered":"SHG beats Jacksonville on road in Week 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adrian Dater
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 Special to The State Journal-Register<\/p>\n

(This story will be updated with photos from Friday’s game)<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE \u2014 After getting waxed by 43 points in their season-opener at home, sympathy cards were already being drafted for the 2025 Sacred Heart-Griffin<\/a> football team. Put those cards in the paper shredder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cyclones have rebounded back with a vengeance since that home-opener to a very good St. Louis Christian Brothers High School team<\/a> as quarterback Cam Brinkman has led SHG to two straight wins, by a combined score of 120-40.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest win was over Jacksonville, 55-20, Friday night at Kraushaar-Rosenberger Field. Brinkman passed for 157 yards and one touchdown, but it was the Cyclones\u2019 ground game that trampled over the Crimsons\u2019 defense in the first week of Central State Eight Conference play. The Cyclones rushed for 394 yards, with Brinkman, Mikey Groesch and Ryan Broomfield each rushing for two touchdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: <\/strong>Springfield area Week 3 high school football live updates, top performers<\/a><\/p>\n

Brinkman, the 6-foot-1, 175-pound junior with quick feet and a good arm, listed several factors as to how his team has bounced back so dramatically from Week 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOffense is starting to click, getting better every game,\u201d Brinkman said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some great game plans, so credit to the coaches. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s been major tweaks in the system. It\u2019s just been watching film, getting guys\u2019 techniques better, and just maybe firing up the guys a little more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jacksonville (1-2, 0-1 CS8) was very much in the football game, down just 7-6 in the second quarter, when everything started to go wrong. Junior receiver Austin Rutter caught a 30-yard pass to the Jacksonville 33, then Brinkman ran it in from 17 yards to give SHG a 14-6 lead.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

After being forced to punt, a bad snap over the punter\u2019s head saw the ball roll down to the Crimsons\u2019 6, where it was recovered by the Cyclones. Groesch ran it in from there and suddenly it was 21-6 with 5:51 left in the half.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The game became really lopsided after Broomfield, a 5-10, 225-pound running back, ran for 38 yards to the Crimsons\u2019 4, then ran it to paydirt from there for one of his two scores and a 28-6 SHG lead at the half.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I think the difference tonight was they dominated the offensive and defensive line,\u201d Jacksonville coach Mark Grounds said. \u201cThat\u2019s just something that age and the weight room have to cure.\u201d<\/p>\n

More: <\/strong>North Mac’s Kinzy Kirchner is voted as the SJ-R’s athlete of the week<\/a><\/p>\n

Jacksonville is a young team, with seven sophomores starting on offense. Grounds thinks his team will be very good eventually, but some growing pains likely remain in the offing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start seven sophomores, and some days they\u2019re going to look great and some days they\u2019re going to have some ups and downs,\u201d Grounds said. \u201cThe inconsistency of youth, I thought (was a factor) tonight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cyclones (2-1, 1-0 CS8) coach John Allison said his team is still missing some key players to injury, but is getting healthier not just with the body, but the mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of guys moving around. We\u2019ve had to switch a lot of positions, with some injuries, but we\u2019ve got some younger guys stepping up,\u201d Allison said. \u201cAustin Rutter had a great night tonight, and he wasn\u2019t involved a lot in the offense the first couple weeks. And, obviously, Broomfield and Groesch are still running really well. And, I think Cam has really shown what he can do with his legs the last two weeks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jacksonville\u2019s Carlito Mitchell, a freshman, was the bright light for the Crimsons with two touchdown runs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brinkman, who now has six touchdown passes, isn\u2019t getting ahead of himself. The Cyclones will play a very tough Quincy Notre Dame team Friday night at Ken Leonard Field, and the Raiders outscored opponents 92-6 in their first two games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are getting better, but it\u2019s all about working harder and trying to get even better,\u201d Brinkman said.<\/p>\n

Adrian Dater is a freelance writer for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached through the sports department at sports@sj-r.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adrian Dater \u00a0|\u00a0 Special to The State Journal-Register (This story will be updated with photos from Friday’s game)…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":223324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,8015,8019,3059,3188,723,1318,17353,18131,5386,1818,121159,7310,63193,121160,50,450,1457,1451,121158,87984,11645,62,1458,10427,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-223323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-county","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-high","16":"tag-high-school-football","17":"tag-il","18":"tag-illinois","19":"tag-illinois-high-school-football","20":"tag-jacksonville","21":"tag-morgan","22":"tag-morgan-county","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-overall","25":"tag-overall-positive","26":"tag-positive","27":"tag-sangamon","28":"tag-sangamon-county","29":"tag-school","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-sports-news","32":"tag-springfield","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-of-america","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115196536089575425","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}