By BEAU WICKER and Bryan Gaskins
Pharos-Tribune
— Logansport’s football team has recorded convincing wins against Class 3A opponents — Twin Lakes and Peru — to open the season.
The Berries will step up to a 5A opponent — Huntington North — in their North Central Conference opener tonight at Berry Stadium.
The Vikings (0-2) have handed the Berries (2-0) their first loss of the season in each of the past three years, including 51-15 last season.
“They return a lot of kids and the last couple years they’ve had our number,” Logan coach Bucky Kramer said. “Obviously this is a game we’ve been looking forward to for the last year.”
Huntington North is coming off a 41-3 loss to Class 5A No. 1 Carmel last week.
“It’s hard to gauge how Huntington performed against Carmel,” Kramer said. “Carmel should be competing in the state finals in 5A. They’re very good. They’re like watching a small college team across the board. Huntington moved the ball well on them. They made some costly mistakes in positions where they could have scored. Carmel’s defense was too fast and didn’t give them any breathing room and forced them into doing things they didn’t want to do.”
The Vikings opened the season with a 55-30 loss at Homestead.
“Homestead is a very, very good 5A team in the north,” Kramer said.
The Vikings are led by senior running back Austin Shoemaker, who rushed for 276 yards and three touchdowns against the Berries a year ago. He’s averaging 103 yards per game and 9.7 per carry this season.
“It seems like Shoemaker has been there for 14 years,” Kramer said. “He’s got a big offensive line and he reads the field well and his cutbacks are solid. He’s had a lot of success all year no matter who’ve they’ve played.”
HN quarterback Kevin Fisher is 22 of 38 through the air for 260 yards.
The Vikings have had a size advantage against the Berries in recent years.
“It’s not gonna be any different as most of our games this course of the season,” Kramer said. “We’re not blessed with the largest kids in the world, but our kids work their tails off to do everything they need to be successful at their positions.”
The Berries will try to avoid the miscues that allowed the recent games against the Vikings get out of hand.
“We fumbled seven times two years ago. Last year was a pretty messy ballgame where we spotted them two scores early,” Kramer said. “You can’t win any football game if you do that against a good opponent. They’re a good team that makes you make mistakes. That’s the kind of football we want to make people play, too.”
The Berries had two 100-yard rushers in their 42-13 win at Peru last week. Quarterback Tanner Hess finished with 112 yards and a touchdown, and halfback Victor Silva had 107 yards and four TDs. Bo Bullard added 79 yards on the ground. Jarod Schrock had two catches for 37 yards and a TD.
Lamarr Stovall had 6.5 tackles and two sacks to lead the defense. Tommy Jennings had 6.0 tackles and two sacks. Michael Smith and Joe Loposser each had an interception.
HN coach Rief Gilg has been impressed by what he’s seen on film from the Berries.
“This is the kind of Logansport team we saw three or four years ago,” he told the Herald Press. “They have really bought in to pounding the football. They have good speed on the edge, and they are running the option well. They are an undefeated team, and they haven’t had a close game because they’ve played very well.”
Mid-Indiana Conference football competition begins tonight and based on recent history, Lewis Cass and Hamilton Heights are good bets to challenge for the top spot. They have combined to win the last seven conference championships, sharing the hardware last season.
Veteran Cass coach Scott Mannering sees a formidable challenger rising in 2010: Northwestern.
“This looks to me like the best team they’ve had in several years,” Mannering said. “A lot of people think they are the team to beat in the MIC this year and after seeing their first two games, I’d have to agree with that. I think they have a lot of weapons offensively and they are really strong defensively. I don’t see too many weaknesses in their team.”
Northwestern coach John Hendryx chuckled when informed that Mannering had pegged his team as the MIC favorite.
“That Holtz over there in Galveston drives me crazy,” Hendryx quipped, referring to former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz’s penchant for talking up his opponent.
Class 2A No. 10-ranked Cass visits Class 2A No. 11 Northwestern tonight for an early conference showdown. The Kings have won the last 11 meetings between the border rivals, a streak that dates back to 2000. The Tigers seemed to close the gap between the two teams in a pair of meetings last season, but they still came up short.
The Tigers hope to break the Kings’ dominance in the series tonight. “I think [the Tiger players] are looking forward to [tonight]. It’s our conference opener and it’s a rival of ours,” Hendryx said, “but our big thing is we want to be better this Friday than we were last Friday. If that is enough to win, great. If it’s not, then we need to find out some of the things that we’re not doing very well. We have a long ways to go until the [state] tournament starts so we just want to keep making improvements.”
Hendryx is impressed with the Kings, who are breaking in new players at many positions.
“I think it’s a typical Cass team. The faces and names change, but the style of football and the level of play doesn’t,” he said. “They’re physical on both sides of the ball and they do a good job of running that [wing-T] offense. They have a great fullback [Josh Knutson] and good wingbacks. I think they’re trying to pound the ball at you a little bit, trying to let the quarterback [Jake Stover] come into his own, but he already has two touchdown passes in two games.”
Cass went 1-1 in its non-conference games, beating Class A power Pioneer before falling to defending Class 3A state champion West Lafayette last week. The Kings’ schedule doesn’t let up with Northwestern tonight and Hamilton Heights next week.
“I thought we made a lot of progress the last week,” Mannering said. “Even though we didn’t win, I thought we played better against West Lafayette than we did against Pioneer. Of course, most teams should play better in Week 2 than Week 1.
“For us, I think controlling [Northwestern’s] offense is a real concern. [QB] Tanner Martin, I think, is a very good athlete who is a run-pass threat. Combine him with the other skill guys they have at the wingback and fullback [spots] … they play a lot of people and they’re all quick and they all run hard, and their offensive line is solid too. Our big challenge is going to be from a defensive standpoint, whether or not we can stop them.”
The Class A No. 5 Panthers face the last team that knocked them off in Midwest Conference play — almost four years ago to the day.
The current Pioneer seniors were eighth graders back then. Since that game the Panthers have won 28 MWC games in a row, including last week’s 49-21 win over Winamac.
Riley Thimlar led the Panthers with 134 yards rushing and four touchdowns against Winamac, and the senior fullback has 235 yards rushing and six TDs after two games. But he’s likely out tonight because of injuries to both shoulders. Halfback Joe Miller is also likely out because of an ankle injury suffered in Week 1.
“We’re gonna have to get healthy,” Pioneer coach Mike Johnson said. “After the first two weeks we’re pretty banged up.”
Owen Dorris will fill in for Thimlar at fullback, and several players will rotate in to fill the void on defense.
South Newton enters with losses to North Newton (41-12) and Frontier (20-12) to start the season.
“They’ve had a lot of turnovers. They’ve had 12 or more turnovers the first two games that have really hurt them,” Johnson said. “They’re going to be hungry. They’ve had two games they let slip away.”
Johnson is looking for his defense to tighten up its play against the Rebels’ spread offense. The Panthers allowed 19 points to Cass and 21 points to Winamac in their first two games.
“Our defense has got to play better,” he said. “You can’t give up three touchdowns a game and be a good defensive unit. Their offense will test us.”
Nate Grigsby added 74 yards on the ground in the win over Winamac. Tyler Miller had 108 yards passing and a TD. Deven Lee had three catches for 79 yards, and he added two interceptions on defense.
Winamac (1-1, 0-1 MWC) at N. White (2-0, 1-0 MWC)
The Vikings have returned to their traditional wing-T offense after having run the single wing the last several years. They’re off to a perfect start after wins over Lake Station (47-7) and Tri-County (14-9).
The Warriors enter the contest a little banged up after last week’s loss at Pioneer. Chance Blankenship and Jordan Field will likely miss the game because of concussions, and Zac Dix will be limited because of a leg injury according to coach Tim Roth.
“It’ll be a test for our younger replacements,” Roth said. “We’ve got to go down there ready to compete for 48 minutes.”
Eric Sass had 185 yards rushing and two touchdowns against Pioneer. The senior fullback has 465 yards and four TDs on the ground after two games.
The Warriors were tied with Pioneer at 14-all early in the third quarter before the Panthers scored three straight touchdowns to take a 35-14 lead into the fourth.
“We had six bad minutes there in the third quarter,” Roth said. “We tied it and they broke a 70-yard touchdown on a trap play, and we went into a funk for five or six minutes and the game got away from us. ... It’s all coachable, correctable stuff. The kids didn’t give up. The ball just bounced against us in the third quarter.”
Roth plans to be on the sidelines tonight for the first time this season. He has been coaching in the booth after recovering from successful surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his leg.
Caston (0-2, 0-1 MWC) at Frontier (1-1, 1-0 MWC)
The Comets are reeling a bit after letting their first two games slip away, but coach Chris Ulerick likes how his team has responded this week in practice.
“The guys have done a lot better job this week in practice with their intensity and focus,” he said. “The first two weeks have been a wake-up call. They’ve been busting their tails in practice this week. The seniors have done that. They’ve done what they needed to do all year long. They’re taking a step in the right direction in practice.
“We still have high hopes for the season.”
Frontier is coming off a 20-12 win over South Newton after opening with a loss at Clinton Prairie (38-19).
Ulerick said the Falcons, who have just 19 boys on the roster, have switched to a single wing offense similar to what North White had been running in recent years.
“It does look like North White. They can snap the ball to three guys, and they run counter, sweeps and throw the ball,” Ulerick said.
As for his squad, Ulerick said, “We just have to find ways to finish drives. Right now we’ve won on paper two weeks in a row, unfortunately that’s not what our record shows. We need to finish drives and most importantly finish games.”
