DULUTH — From the primary time Esko’s Joey Antonutti picked up a soccer as a toddler, he at all times regarded for contact and embraced the physicality of the sport he loves.
Antonutti, who’s now a beginning senior operating again on one other elite Esko soccer crew, hasn’t misplaced his fondness for the physicality of soccer. If something, he loves it now greater than ever earlier than.
“Ever since I used to be somewhat child, that’s been my favourite a part of the sport — contact, that’s what I search for,” Antonutti stated. “We do a number of drills in observe the place we’ve got to dodge the blocker and our coach says, ‘Should you get hit by the blocker, you’re tackled.’ However I at all times say ‘No’ as a result of I’m searching for that. I need to run him over.”
Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram
Antonutti set the tone bodily along with his enforcer-like play on either side of the ball within the season opener. He and Esko’s soccer crew thrashed Duluth East 63-6 at Ordean Stadium on Thursday evening.
Esko was unquestionably firing on all cylinders within the season-opening blowout, largely due to the physicality of its operating backs. The backfield bruisers gashed East’s protection all through the opening quarter and constructed a 28-0 lead, which included an 11-yard landing rush by senior operating again Gino Bertogliat.
Whether or not it was Bertogliat shedding tacklers en path to the tip zone or Antonutti steamrolling defenders for giant yardage chunks, Esko’s physicality within the backfield was merely an excessive amount of for East to deal with. For Bertogliat, that toughness and grit within the backfield has turn out to be an id his place group has rallied round.
“It’s a real id for us at this level,” Bertogliat stated. “This yr I believe we’ve bought the largest, quickest and strongest crew I believe this system has ever had. A whole lot of instances, children get the ball, see somebody of their means and simply say, ‘I work my (butt) off for this, I’m going to run you over.’”
Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram
Esko had seemingly limitless success within the backfield and on the line of scrimmage, which resulted in senior quarterback Jacion Owens making an attempt lower than 10 passes within the season opener Thursday evening.
As an alternative, Owens, like a veteran level guard within the NBA, bought the ball to his playmakers within the backfield and allow them to work their magic. For guys like Antonutti and Bertogliat, the carries they bought towards East had been a mirrored image of the work they put in all through the offseason.
“We put in all of the work within the offseason and everyone seems to be within the weight room,” Bertogliat stated of Esko’s physicality. “We’re all simply difficult one another. After we get the ball, we lose sense of all the things else and simply run. We run as exhausting as we are able to till we get tackled or attain the tip zone.”
Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram
Antonutti and Bertogliat aren’t the one individuals in Esko’s program who notice that power and physicality have turn out to be a signature trait of this yr’s crew. Esko head coach Scott Arntson is aware of the way in which his senior-laden crew likes to play on either side of the ball.
“That is one in every of our strongest groups, so you already know they’re going to be bodily,” Arntson stated. “They like being bodily, particularly defensively. It’s a senior-heavy group they usually’re at all times going to be bodily.”
Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram
Esko’s dynamic backfield, which includes a litany of seniors together with Koi Perich and Ethan Kilichowski, along with Antonutti and Bertogliat, solely noticed motion within the first half of Thursday evening’s season opener.
Esko had constructed a 56-6 lead going into the halftime intermission that made the ultimate two frames nothing greater than a formality. Esko pulled its starters and cruised to the aforementioned 63-6 victory.
Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram
Given the success Esko’s backfield had towards East within the opener Thursday evening — along with the truth that Esko is a mixed 22-2 in its final two seasons and has a pair of state event berths below its belt — the operating backs had been giddy in regards to the potential of this yr’s crew.
“I’d like to get again into the state event my senior yr and exit with a bang,” Bertogliat stated. “It’s ring season. I would like that greater than something as a result of a hoop would full my highschool profession.”
Antonutti shares the identical 2023 state championship aspirations as Bertogliat.
“Something lower than a state championship, we’re going to be upset,” Antonutti stated. “We’d like that ring.”
If Esko goes to make a run to US Financial institution Stadium later this fall and compete for a Class AAA state championship, it can possible be largely due to these backfield bruisers.
Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram
Reagan Hoverman joined the Duluth Information Tribune as a sports activities reporter in July 2023 after spending the higher a part of two years overlaying quite a lot of prep and collegiate sports activities on the Pierce County Journal in Ellsworth, Wis. Earlier than that, he was a information and sports activities reporter on the Inter-County Chief in Frederic, Wis.