Another bruising night at the office for the Lancers
LAKEVILLE — It’s crunch time in the season, literally for Laville’s Lancers as two bruising physical games in a row lead to another one on the road this week.
The Lancers and North Judson slugged to a 9-7 final a week ago handing Laville their first loss.
“When you lose a tight ball game your kids have an opportunity to improve and a little extra motivation to do so,” said Laville boss Will Hostrawser. “As we watched the film with the team on Saturday we were really just one play away from winning that game. The week before we were one play away from losing that one and we happened to make that play. You have to take it in stride and make yourself better.”
For the second week in a row, the explosive Laville offense was held in check.
“I don’t want to minimize our opponent but we had a gun pointed at our own foot in both those games,” said Hostrawser. “We didn’t do a good job of controlling the controllables. We made a lot of mental mistakes. Little positioning things, timing being off, just little things that happened at inopportune times.”
“We would string together a few plays in a row and then we’d have a holding penalty or something to just hold us back and take us out of synch.”
In both cases, the Laville defense kept the Lancers in striking distance for the whole night.
“Any time you have a good defense that can buckle down in the red zone, those kids stepping up with their backs against the wall believing in our system and one another,” said Hostrawser. “With as many guys as we have going both ways that effort and dedication to that side of the ball is always nice to have.”
This week promises to be another bruising contest as the unique misdirection, grind it out offense of the Culver Cavs will be the opponent.
“Coach Zehner does a great job, they run that double tight T and they run it so well,” said Hostrawser. “You watch them on film and the cameraman doesn’t know who has the ball. Their kids play hard and they limit your offensive possessions.”
“When you play them you have to get stops,” he said. “In this game first downs are going to be the tale of the tape. We have to keep them out of that goal of three yards for each play.”
“I don’t even know if they know how to punt (at Culver) they just line up and keep coming at you. That’s their style,” said Hostrawser. “They play hard-nosed football the way it should be played and I always look forward to the challenge of going over there.”
The nature of the Culver offense presents another problem for the Lancer offense.
“Their long grind out drives do create an excessive state of urgency for your offense and it can take you off of your game in that way,” said Hostrawser. “That’s a whole other dynamic that you are trying to deal with.”
“We have to play very physical in the trenches to match them,” he said. “We have to tackle well. Their backs do a great job of finding the seam and getting that extra two or three yards and we have to get to them before they can do that.”