When Curie starting quarterback Gabe Taylor was battling injuries last fall, then-sophomore backup Damian Feret was more than just a placeholder.
Feret threw a touchdown pass in a loss to Prosser, ran for a TD in a win over Senn and set up another score with a key pass in a win against Urban Prep.
Now Taylor has graduated and Feret owns the starting job. He’s ready for the challenge.
“It feels great because I have a lot of trust in these teammates I have,” Feret said during a 7-on-7 event June 25 at Farragut. “I’ve had them since my freshman year, actually. So being with them for three years, we have a lot of chemistry together.”
One of those players is another rising junior, Malik Horton. A two-sport standout who also will play a bigger role for a young Curie basketball team this winter, Horton will be the Condors’ primary running back this season after the graduation of Darius Townsel.
“He’s a great talent, for sure,” Feret said of Horton. “Having him in the run game opens up so much more for the passing game.”
Also great is going into his first year as a starting quarterback with significant experience.
“It helped me so much,” Feret said. “After the Prosser game when (Taylor) got hurt, I started getting more varsity reps. I got more ready for it.”
He and the Condors will try to keep the program on the upswing. In the four years before coach Jarve Lewis-Bey arrived, Curie won four games. But they went 5-5 in his first season and 8-2 last year, when they won the Public League North and earned their second straight IHSA playoff berth.
Among the other veterans are rising junior cornerback/returner Dream Horton, who ran multiple kicks back for touchdowns last season; senior two-way linemen Doumarier Tabb and Mateo Acuna; and senior tight end/outside linebacker Josiah Hogan.
The Condors will be young, with a small senior class and a bunch of talented juniors who saw varsity action last season.
“We’re about 15 kids away from where I feel we should be,” Lewis-Bey said. “We’re (a Class) 8A school and we’re one of the big schools in CPS. So when we go play (another 8A school), we play somebody with at least 60 kids over there, juniors and seniors. We’re going with our JV kids coming up just to give us 35 or 40.”
Lack of depth aside, the Condors will aim to keep improving. After Public League realignment, they’ll move from an upper-tier White conference to a new second-tier Red Division with Mather, Prosser, Speer, Urban Prep and Westinghouse.
Lewis-Bey upgraded the nonconference schedule, adding Lincoln Park from the Red’s top tier.
“You don’t want to bounce up, bounce down every two years, every three years,” Lewis-Bey said. “We want to stay up here, we want to compete up here, we want to win up here.”