All is right with the world.

St. Joseph is back in the postseason.

Quite frankly, the high school football playoffs seemed a little bit different to me the last three seasons without the Lancers.

After qualifying for the postseason in 12 consecutive seasons from 1994 to 2005, St. Joseph returns from its three-year hiatus when it travels 82 miles to take on undefeated Cedar Grove-Belgium in a first-round Division-5 matchup at 7 tonight.

Since advancing to the state quarterfinals in 2005, the Lancers went 1-8 in 2006, 0-9 in 2007 (when they had to forfeit the final five games due to a depleted roster) and 3-6 in 2008.

They even started 1-4 this season — giving them 28 losses in 33 games — before turning it around.

Gratifying? You better believe it.

“I’m very pleased with where we stand right now,” said St. Joseph coach Jim Kenesie, who was in his first season at the helm the last time the Lancers qualified for the postseason. “It’s a huge accomplishment to get back to the playoffs. That was a goal going into the season. It’s where we needed to be as a program.

“I still feel we left some games on the table. I think we probably should have been a little bit better than what we are. With that said, I’m extremely proud with the way that our team responded after being 1-4. We’ve handled adversity very well. The ball didn’t bounce our way early in the season, but we kept at it. That’s the mark of a pretty good team.”

Looking for more

Don’t get the wrong idea. St. Joseph is not just happy to be there.

“Cedar Grove-Belgium is a very good football team,” Kenesie said, “but we’re up to the challenge.”

Led by outside linebacker Jeremy Delabio, defensive tackle Corey Hylton, free safety Joe Pillizzi and inside linebackers Zack Fisher and Charlie Pechous, the stingy Lancers have surrendered 12 points or less in their last five games. They are allowing 5.3 points during their current four-game winning streak.

Turning to the run

The turning point, though, was revamping the offense to a more run-oriented attack after losing to Racine Lutheran 12-2 in Week 5.

“Our offense wasn’t giving us a chance to succeed,” Kenesie said. “We weren’t executing as well as we needed to be. Shoreland (a 14-3 victory) was the first game where we made a commitment to run the ball. At that point, we knew that we could keep games close with our defense.”

The St. Joseph program will find out how far it has progressed tonight when it takes on the talented Rockets, who have won 22 of their last 23 games.

“We just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing the last four weeks,” Kenesie said. “We have to play some good defense and be able to run the football.”

Andrew Horschak can be contacted at ahorschak@kenoshanews.com