HS football previews
LAKEVILLE - Both Laville and Triton came away with two-point wins in Week 1 of the high school football season. This week the pair meet up for the first Hoosier North Athletic Conference game of the young season and also for the first time in two years since Covid knocked out their game last August.
Triton, ranked No. 12 this week in Class 1A, used a safety and field goal in the fourth quarter to come back and defeat South Central last week. The team rushed for over 300 yards, including 155 by Anthony Schuh (2 TDS), 86 from Tyler Amsden and 81 from Cole Shively.
“There were a lot of mistakes that we made, but the nice thing is, at halftime, we regrouped and played much better,” said Triton head coach Rodney Younis in an interview with WTCA radio. “We faced a little adversity right before the game - one starter wasn’t feeling very good and another got injured the night before. We had to use a couple of players that didn’t really get a lot of reps during the week, but they came through for us. I was pleased with our team effort. We’ve started with South Central the last four years and every game has been a tight one. We match up well with each other. It was just one of those grind-it-out games. We were fortunate to be the team that came out on top.”
Laville, ranked No. 15 in Class 2A this week, was on pace to score over 100 points after putting up 14 in the first few minutes of its win over Bremen last week, but that turned out to be the total output for the game. The two TDS ended up being just enough to hold off the Lions as the
Lancer defense came up with two fourth quarter fumble recoveries to seal the win.
“Any wins are nice wins, let alone going to Bremen and eking one out,” said Laville head coach Will Hostrawser in an interview with WTCA radio. “While we are happy we won, (the final score) was about the only statistic we won. We just had a few more bulbs on the scoreboard lit up than they did. I was proud of our kids. They dug in and played hard. We had one drive where we didn’t have a negative play and that happened to be the one drive we scored on, the first drive. After that, we’d rattle off a good gain then all of sudden we’re going backwards 5 or 10 yards because of a penalty or a miscue. That happened all game. Bremen had a tremendous amount of momentum, especially in the second half. It was nice to see, as exhausted as our kids were, digging in and holding ground, working together to get stops on defense. The old adage is ‘bend but don’t break.’ I think they flexed us about as far as possible. Our kids made plays when it counted and we found just enough offense to pull it out.
“There were times we had three freshmen in the secondary because of injuries or cramping. Our kids did a nice job of pulling one another along. I think the potential of this group is really high, but we have a lot of learning to do.”
If the two teams would have met last year as scheduled, it would have been a rare meeting between freshman starting quarterbacks - LV’S Lucas Plummer and Triton’s Shively. Instead, the two sophomore QBS will meet for the first time on the gridiron.
“They play sound football,” Younis said of the
Lancers. “They are not going to hurt themselves. They have some athletes and they have some big boys up front. We can’t let their running backs get loose on us. It’s a quality team. It’s going to be difficult. We’ll need to be sharp and take care of the football. We need to have great effort on defense and swarm to the ball. Offensively, we have to control the tempo and keep them off the field. We don’t want them to have the football. In the red zone we need to score, whether it’s a touchdown or a field goal.
“Every team we face can beat anyone on any given night. You have to be ready to play. You can’t have a down night. We have to make sure we are taking care of us and see what happens. The HNAC is a great football conference. The champion could have a loss or two.”
“The one thing that jumped out is that South Central took the lead early, but Triton just kept battling and found a way to win,” countered Hostrawser about the Trojans. “They didn’t fold when they got down. They played harder. They have a great running back, maybe one of the best we’ll face this year and a quarterback that can sling it or run it; just a lot of athletic weapons on the perimeter. We’re going to have our hands full. They can stretch you in so many ways. They attack the perimeter. Their running backs have good vision. Their running game sets up the passing game. They are going to bring what they’ve got and play with an edge. It should be an old fashioned HNAC game.
The last meeting between the two was a 59-14 LV win back in August of 2019. Kickoff Friday is 7 p.m.