Last season was special for the Fenwick High School football team. The Friars finished 11-3 and won their second IHSA state championship in five years, upsetting heavily favored East St. Louis in the Class 6A title game.
While plenty of talented players on the team have moved on due to graduation, Fenwick’s standards and expectations have not changed. Simply put, even with several newcomers in the lineup, the Friars want to compete each week against high-quality competition.
Rising senior running back/defensive back Jake Thies says this year’s team is working hard this summer, and he’s looking forward to the beginning of season practice, Aug. 5.
“The summer’s going good so far,” Thies told Wednesday Journal in an interview. “It’s definitely a new team, pretty young. Some guys don’t have as much experience. We’re just focused on getting better in the summer and getting more reps to our younger guys and guys that maybe didn’t get a lot of reps last year. We definitely want to carry the momentum from last year into this year.”
Thies adds that while last year was memorable for many reasons, the program has turned the page and is squarely focused on making this season a success.
“For us, last year was last year. Anything that happened last year doesn’t matter,” said Thies, who in 2025 had 1,729 yards of total offense and scored 20 total touchdowns while contributing five interceptions, three forced fumbles, seven pass breakups, and nine tackles for loss defensively. “This is a new team and we’ve got new goals. We’re not going to keep living off last year.”
One thing Thies has not had to concern himself with this summer is the college recruiting process. He ended it on March 28 with a verbal commitment to the University of Iowa. That’s allowed him to focus on preparing for the upcoming season.
“Definitely feels good to not have to worry about that,” Thies said. “Now I can focus on everything Fenwick. Last summer, it was something that was definitely on my mind a decent amount, and now it’s good to have just one focus.”
When fall practice starts, Fenwick will start to home in on its Week 1 game, Aug. 21, at Joliet Catholic. That marks the beginning of yet another tough schedule for the Friars, but Thies says he and his teammates wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Joliet is a (Chicago Catholic League) opponent and it should be a good game,” he said. “We were looking for anyone to play us, and we’ll be ready to play.”
As he enters his third and final varsity season as a Friar, Thies – whose brother Tommy will begin his college career this fall at Miami University of Ohio – is working on being a leader, and he plans to apply what he learned from Tommy and the other graduated players.
“It’s cool to see guys step up and take that leadership role,” Thies said. “It’s definitely something I want to do this year.”
Thies wants Fenwick to win as many games as possible this year, but he realizes there’s still some preparation work remaining this summer. He knows the value of being completely ready for the season, as last year shows.
“Our focus is on getting better, faster, stronger,” Thies said, “get reps in practice and learn from our mistakes.”