Maroons, Chargers already excited for season finale – The News-Gazette

CHAMPAIGN — Matt Leskis has a unique perspective on the football rivalry between Champaign Central and Centennial.

He grew up playing in the battle for Champaign.

Albeit for Centennial, where he graduated from in 1986. The Chargers went 2-2 against the Maroons during his time as a player.

Leskis has served as the Central coach, however, for the last two seasons. When those annual matchups happened the second week of the season.

That won’t be the case this year, though. The Maroons and Chargers will meet in Week 9 at Tommy Stewart Field with the regular-season finale scheduled for 7 p.m. on Oct. 16.

Leskis, for one, is a fan of the scheduling switch for the two Big 12 Conference teams only separated by a few miles who both play their regular-season games at Tommy Stewart Field.

“I think it should be that way,” Leskis said on Tuesday while his Maroons stopped by The News-Gazette for the newspaper’s fifth annual high school football media days event. “They do (that) in college, where the rivalry games are the last game of the season. I’m excited about it. I think that’s the way it always should be.”

Leskis remembers facing Greg Boysaw’s highly-touted Maroons in 1984, before Boysaw went on to play 33 games at Illinois from 1986-1989. The Chargers unexpectedly eked out a 7-6 win.

“We were up for that game and we ended up holding them to less than 100 yards,” Leskis said. “That’s something that I still remember, and it’s been decades. … That’s why I encourage everybody to try to play football. The memories and the bonds that I made during that time, I just can’t replace it with anything else.”

Leskis will square off against new Centennial coach Keegan Hill for the first time when the Maroons meet the Chargers in mid-October.

Hill’s first experience with the rivalry comes after he spent eight seasons as Mendota’s coach from 2017-2024 before working as an assistant coach at Plainfield East for the 2025 season. Centennial named him its seventh football coach in school history on April 20.

“As a coach, you want your best foot forward every week,” Hill said.

His players, however, are trying not to think of the Maroons.

Not yet at least.

“We’re not worried about them,” Centennial senior wide receiver Escko Law said. “So, we’re just going to go week-by-week and just do what we do.”

Nate Albaugh is set to enter his first season as the Tri-County coach after leading several area programs throughout his career. Including a notable stop Central from 2013-2017, with his 2015 Maroons going 11-2 and reaching the Class 5A state semifinals.

His two wins against Centennial felt a bit sweeter. The losses stung more, too, including a 20-8 setback in 2013.

“I’ll never forget right after the game, walking through a line of kids and getting trash thrown on me,” Albaugh said. “It hurt, it hurt bitterly, and I’ll never forget it. I remember the following year, our quarterback being chanted at. The online battle going on all week and going bitterly all week.”

He hasn’t experienced anything like the Central-Centennial rivalry in more than 20 years of coaching.

“That game is the most bitter rivalry I’ve ever been a part of,” Albaugh said.

Central and Centennial have concluded the regular season sporadically since the rivalry’s inception in 1973, six years after classes began at Centennial.

This year’s meeting could carry additional playoff stakes with 384 teams set to make the postseason instead of 256. Central will try to earn its first playoff appearance since 2018, while Centennial has reached the playoffs four of the last five seasons.

“When you don’t have to find a reason to get people charged up, then you might have to dial them back down to get them to play as well as they should,” Hill said. “Sometimes, that’s easier than the others.”

The Maroons are hoping their matchup with the Chargers in a little more than two months won’t be their final game of the season, though it would carry more weight than most games on their schedule.

“Definitely looking forward to it,” Central senior running back and linebacker Malachi Hutchison said. “The last game of the season, winner takes it all. We worked this entire offseason and every loss, every win, every struggle we went through is put towards beating Centennial.”