HS football previews
The 55th installment of the Laville versus Glenn football rivalry will take place in Lakeville this week when the Lancers and Falcons strap up the chinstraps at Lancer Field.
The Lancers are coming off a big conference win on the road at Knox and that has a young Laville team anxious for what lies ahead.
“I love going over there (Knox),” said Laville head coach Will Hostrawser. “They always give you a good game, it’s a great atmosphere. The field, the facilities are fantastic and recently we seem to have played pretty well over there. Their offense is extremely tough to defend. It was a good hard-fought ball game.”
Laville has put up 83 points in the past two games and last week at Knox was the first time the Lancers have given up more than one score. On the season they are averaging over 33 points a game and giving up just under 11.
In a season already shortened, the Lancers are making the most of it.
“At this point in the year with all that we’ve been through it seemed like we were trying to
play cards with all the bad cards,” said Hostrawser. “Through adversity kids draw together and do really good things. These kids have found their way. They are starting to gel. We have just the right dab of senior leadership there. Usually going into the fourth week of the season, which is what we really are, you are just starting to get your legs. These kids have worked hard to get together and know each other’s strengths.”
This week is another challenge in a rivalry game with Glenn at home on Friday night.
“This is one of those games where nothing else matters except the 48 minutes on the clock,” said Hostrawser. “There are eight miles between the two schools and everybody knows everybody. It’s kind of for the bragging rights of the next 365 days. I know they are wanting to get back on track after a couple of losses here but they competed hard with Knox and Bremen. They are a very talented ball club that could explode at any time.”
The film bears that out as the coach has broken it down.
“They have a lot of team speed,” said Hostrawser. “Their front seven on defense play very downhill and aggressive. Their secondary guys and skilled guys are very skilled. They can move.
Their perimeter speed is probably the best we’ve played to this point and that’s something we will have to work to contain.”
For his team, the main concern is more mental than physical. Coming off a big win, the chance for a letdown is always in the back of a coach’s mind.
“Every time you get a big win, you want to match that intensity and take it a little bit further,” said Hostrawser. “Theoretically, we could take a step back mentally, but I’ve been trying to challenge our team this week that we saw what our potential is, but there are still a lot of things that we can get better at. The challenge this week is to do that and play to a different level yet.”
The Falcons are coming off a somewhat bitter loss to Bremen that has left a little aftereffect on the team this week.
“I thought our kids battled hard,” said Glenn head coach Austin Foust. “When you lose your starting quarterback (Nathan Creed) in the first quarter and he’s a big part of our offense, that’s not a recipe for success. We battled to 7-2 at half. We just had a blown coverage, but we just can’t have that. We came out, we scored and started to settle down. We have a 13-8 game going into the fourth quarter. I was proud of our kids, proud of our effort and battling the adversity we went through. It was a physical game for both teams.”
There is no rest for the Falcons with another very challenging opponent on Friday with unbeaten Laville.
“I told our kids that we have a rivalry game coming up and we can’t hang our heads now,” said Foust. “Thanks to Jimtown beating Bremen it gives us a shot at tying for first in the conference if we can win out, so we still have our destiny in our own hands as far as that goes. The middle part of our schedule is a tough task. We feel like we were pretty close on some things. We’re disappointed obviously in some things and how it shook out. You really want to win that game last Friday for the NIC implications, but we didn’t make enough plays and Bremen did.”
Looking at film of the Lancers the challenge is obvious.
“They are very explosive on offense,” said Foust. “They don’t really put a lot of drives together. They are big-play threats. They have a freshman quarterback who is doing a tremendous job for them. He threw all over Knox for big completions and touchdowns and that’s what they want to do, play-action pass and throw it deep. They’ve got a lot of good receivers who can get open and when they do they can catch the ball and when they do it’s usually a touchdown.”
The Lancers also have another weapon in the mix.
“If you do get them in a situation where you can get them to a fourth down they have a kid who can punt the ball 100 yards and kick it 50,” said Foust. “(Leyton) Czarnecki totally changes the game. He’s a guy who can keep them in ball games. They’ve always been a good defensive team. You know they are going to bring everybody downhill and play physical and aggressive. “
The challenge for Glenn is to move forward through adversity.
“When you have somebody go down you look for other guys to step up and I think our kids have shown some leadership in that way over the weekend wanting to take the challenge,” said Foust. “I think our kids have shown a lot of mental toughness. We are finally all here in the building together at school and we just have to keep getting better every day. We’ve been doing some things differently in practice to try to get kids some reps. We just want to be sure every day in practice we keep getting better.”
Game time Friday at Laville is 7 p.m.