Travon Williams races into the end zone for one of his two touchdowns.
Now that Rushawn Grange and Travon Williams have finally found a home, the duo has the Northeast High School football program back where it expected to be all along: the playoffs.
Like Northeast, Grange, a senior running back, and Williams, a senior wide receiver, took roundabout, unexpected routes to get to this point. But they’re here, and having the times of their lives.
“I’m very locked in, and so is my team,” Grange said after rushing 11 times for 132 yards and two touchdowns in Friday’s 36–6 win over Olney, one that sent the Vikings to the postseason and their opponent home. “We’re in the playoffs, and we’re not afraid. I’m ready. My team is ready. I know they are.”
Grange, coming off his fourth straight 100-yard rushing game, and Williams, who also scored twice via an 82-yard kickoff return on the game’s first play, as well as a 35-yard TD catch early in the second quarter, are as dialed in as the rest of their mates. However, it’s how they both ended up here that tells the real story.
Grange spent his first two high school years at Northeast, running for 540 yards as the team’s leading rusher as a sophomore. He then decided to transfer to Archbishop Ryan, where Williams spent his first two years.
“When I was at Ryan as a sophomore, Grange came and shadowed me,” said Williams, who has 28 catches for 358 yards and nine total scores (five receiving). “I told him to come there so we could win a championship, but I ended up leaving.”
Williams transferred to nearby Lincoln, and Grange, then at Ryan, missed the entire season due to injury. He ended up transferring back to Northeast for his senior year, and Williams left Lincoln to join his close friend for their senior campaigns.
It didn’t start out all that great. Northeast, a trendy pick to own the Public League, stumbled out of the gate, losing its first four games and five of its first six. Three of those losses were by a combined four points. Grange got hurt again, missed a game and was slow to return to form, while Williams was without quarterback Asa Manley for almost two games due to Manley’s own injury. A season with such high expectations was in serious danger of collapsing.
However, the Vikings have won four of their last five games. Head coach Phil Gormley, sensing the athletes he has at the running back position (Manley himself is a converted tailback), implemented a new offensive package in which he rotates his stable of playmakers under center in a Wildcat formation, throwing defensive coordinators for a loop. Grange, Manley, senior Rasaan Moore and sophomore Keith Moore share those duties, with a pinch of Williams mixed into the passing game. As a result, the Vikings are averaging 276 yards on the ground in the last four games.
“As a team, we’ve got a lot of athletes,” Grange said. “Coach saw that and put some new packages in. When you’ve got a bunch of running backs and a quarterback who’s really a running back, that comes in handy. It’s working for us.”
Northeast grabbed the fourth and final spot out of the Public League AAAA Independence Division and will travel to Liberty Division top seed Simon Gratz on Friday at 6 p.m. for a quarterfinals match-up. Gratz (8–1) has won seven straight.
“I told the team to get ready for the playoffs and to expect the unexpected,” said Grange, who has 777 yards rushing and 10 TDs. “Teams will look at us as the underdog, and that’s fine, because we haven’t won anything yet. But neither have they (Gratz).”
“We came into the preseason thinking teams would lay down for us and we’d march right to the title game,” Williams said. “It was a wakeup call. Those tight losses got our minds back focused on the game. We lifted more, watched more film, went full contact in practice almost every day. Those losses, we’ll take them in the beginning instead of now.”
And though Williams and Grange have egos, calling them selfish players would be inaccurate. For example, Williams laid a crushing block on one of Grange’s scores.
“When our numbers are called, I’ll block for him and he’ll block for me,” Williams said.
Added Grange: “We’re athletes, so we’ve all got big egos. But we have good coaches, and they limit that. They let us know what we can accomplish when we come together. We’re hard to beat.”
So what version of the Vikings can be expected against Gratz? The September version that couldn’t win or hold leads, or the reinvigorated bunch that is scoring in bunches and has allowed just eight points per game on defense the last three weeks?
“What to expect is more or less what you’re seeing now,” Williams said. “Just us coming out and being a lot stronger and better than we were. We know what we’ve come here to do. It’s our last year, so we’ve come to make our mark.” ••
Teamwork: Travon Williams (left) lays a big block on one of teammate Rushawn Grange’s TD runs. Northeast has won four of its last five games. BILL ACHUFF / FOR THE TIMES
