Pioneer football preview: Coming off 8 wins, Berry stressing ‘defense first’

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

The Pioneer football team is getting back to being Pioneer.

After recording 26 consecutive winning seasons from 1996-2021 – a stretch that included 12 sectional titles, eight regionals, five semistates and three state titles – Pioneer slipped to 2-8 in 2022. But they bounced back for five wins in 2023 and eight wins last year.

The eighth win might have been the most impressive: They drubbed Carroll, who came in having won 22 of its previous 23 games, 49-7 in Flora in the sectional semifinals. Carroll had recorded four shutouts on the season, and the 49 points were the most Carroll had allowed in five years.

Then the Panthers scored first against Taylor in the sectional final at the Panther Pit before the Titans came back to win 28-6.

Coach Adam Berry is a Pioneer grad, and his staff is loaded with Pioneer grads. Berry said he has tried to impress upon the meaning and importance of Pioneer football tradition in righting the program. The players only have to watch a Jacksonville Jaguars preseason game and linebacker and former Panther Jack Kiser to know the standard that has been set.

He called last season “a little taste” of the program’s previous glory.

“The last two years, we’ve really been stressing that Pioneer tradition,” Berry said. “And yes, they knew the recent state champions. They knew the 2017 and 2018 teams, but we even went back farther than that. We showed off the John Harrell (website) on since 1997, when Pioneer won the first state championship, look, we are near the top of the entire state of wins since 1997. Then went to a random year – 2002: ‘Hey, look, since 2002, we’ve had the most wins in the state. So it’s not just the state teams. It’s a true Pioneer tradition.’ And I tell them, ‘I’m tired of hearing alumni (say), ‘Two wins? Five wins? Really? No sectionals? And so I do hope they take that heart a little bit because the staff, a majority of us played at Pioneer. So we’re invested. And we do understand that tradition, and we do hope they do take the Pioneer tradition to heart of being a statewide contender and thinking, hey, we have to look at Pioneer in the north. We need to get back to that. We want to get back to that. But you know, we haven’t been there the last couple of years.”

Pioneer increased their scoring average from 24 points per game in 2023 to 32 last year. Their top two rushers, Micah Rans and Noah VanMeter, who combined for 2,817 yards rushing and 38 touchdowns last year, are both back.

Defensively, Pioneer shaved their scoring average down from 23 points per game in 2023 to 21 in 2024. Berry wants to see even more progress. The Panthers notched 24 shutouts during his first three years as coach from 2016-18.

“We’ve obviously played some juggernauts in Knox and Judson, who put up some points against us,” Berry said. “Taylor, their quarterback (Javionne Harris) was the best player on the field in that game and took advantage of our weaknesses. … But last year, our defense showed some bright spots. Looking at that Carroll game, high-powered offense, could score anywhere on the field, and we held them in check.

“Pioneer is always kind of known for the wing-T. We’ve got the wings on the helmets. But internally, we pride ourselves on defense. When we make those great runs, our state championship teams, a lot of it was because of the defense. The defense was able to get off the field early and often to give our… high-powered offense more chances. Last year, we struggled to get off the field on third-and-long, fourth down. And so we’re taking pride in that this year. We’re defense first. We need to create turnovers. We haven’t been creating turnovers the last four years. We haven’t been getting the interceptions. We are priding ourselves on the defensive side of the ball, and we are taking personally that we haven’t been living up to our standards. We don’t like that 21-point defensive average. We want that to be in the single digits.”

Rans ran for 1,685 yards last year, including 322 yards and five touchdowns in the win at Carroll. He is back for his fourth year under center.

“He obviously proved that he can run the ball,” Berry said. “He entered the record books at Pioneer, and that’s saying something. We’ve had some great guys come through Pioneer football, and I think he ended up being top six in single-season rushing, or at least top 10, and he has the single-game rushing record now. He joined elite company in that aspect. One thing is just become that true dual threat quarterback. If you watched us, you know our passing was our struggle. It got better as the season went on, and here early in the fall, he’s shown that it’s gotten a lot better.”

VanMeter, the senior fullback, raised his per-carry average from 4.6 yards in 2023 to 7.4 yards last year.

“As a sophomore, he was primarily our tight end, and he was then backup fullback behind (2024 grad Rylahn) Toloza,” Berry said. “Toloza went down for a couple games, so he went in there at fullback, and it was kind of, hey, get it done until Toloza can get back. Last year, he established himself as the true fullback in our system.”

The wingback candidates include sophomores Phillip McFatridge and Gage Lakes, junior Shiloh Rine and senior Cole Franklin. Berry said Franklin, who is listed at 136 pounds, put on 15 to 20 pounds of “good weight” since last year.

Berry said getting greater production out of the wingback position will help the offense achieve better balance.

“We need to be a balanced attack, and that hurt us a little bit in that sectional championship game,” Berry said. “(Taylor) took away Micah and Noah pretty well and just couldn’t get our wings established. But we didn’t have a lot of experience at the wingback last year. You know, this year, it’s a battle. We have some guys that are competing.

Junior Carter Mize will start at wide receiver, and senior Eli Guffey will start at tight end. Xander Bullock will back up at tight end.

The offensive linemen features Brady Price moving from center to left tackle and fellow senior Liam Rouch, now in his fourth season on the varsity, at right tackle with junior Kaidyn Wiles and sophomore Ronny Layer adding depth at tackle.

Junior Mikaden Tolosa and senior J.J. Solano will play left and right guard, respectively. Hunter Stover will back up at guard.

Blair Burns, a junior, will start at center. He’s in his third season on the varsity.

Defensively, Berry said to expect a lot of players to rotate in on the line. Berry said sophomores Kit Gotshall and Collin Frye remind him of previous star Pioneer ends like Jason Mersch and Derrick LeGrand, smaller players who impact games with their speed. Burns, Tolosa and junior Mason Shaver will also factor in at end. 

Rouch will get more extensive playing time at defensive tackle after playing mostly on the offensive line in his career. Price has seen time at linebacker and end in his career, but Berry envisions him as a tackle this time. Burns is also a candidate at tackle.

Solano and VanMeter anchor the linebacking from the inside, and Berry added that junior Hunter Stover “worked his tail off” during the offseason and could contribute at inside linebacker. Guffey spent much of his time in the secondary as a freshman and sophomore, but he moved to outside linebacker last year and joined Rans and Rouch on the Class 1A Junior All-State team.

“He just has that high motor,” Berry said of Guffey. “He’s a football player. He just wants to get the job done.”

Sophomore Colten Long is healthy after an injury-marred 2024 and could also factor in at outside linebacker. VanMeter is another outside linebacker candidate.

Rans and Franklin will start at cornerback. Rine and McFatridge will man the safety spots. Gage Lakes and Xander Bullock will be reserves in the secondary.

McFatridge will be the kicker and punter, though Rine also has experience punting. 

Pioneer begins the season ranked No. 11 in the Class 1A USA Today media poll. Carroll is ranked No. 6, and fellow sectional rival Frontier is No. 12. Taylor is unranked.

“You have to play every game,” Berry said when asked what he hopes his players learned from the loss to Taylor. “I’m not saying our team, but a lot of people were looking (and saying), ‘Oh man, you got past Carroll.’ I think they were maybe ranked second in the state at the time. You know, they’re looking at North Judson (in the regional), and it’s like, ‘Hey, woah, woah, woah, we still have Taylor, right?’ And we put Taylor on film, and you could tell they just got it going. They were starting to figure things out with the athletes and the talent that they have. It’s one of those (where) you can’t overlook anyone. You can’t look at scores. You can’t look at Carroll blew out Taylor. But you know, Taylor didn’t have a lot of their guys that game. And so, just every week matters.

“And it showed that it’s hard to win a sectional. I felt like we had a sectional championship-worthy team, and it’s hard to win sectionals in the state of Indiana, no matter the sport. And so I just hope they have that hunger to take it to the next step this coming season.”

Schedule

Aug. 22 – vs. Lewis Cass, 7 p.m.

Aug. 29 – vs. Knox, 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 5 – at Winamac, 7 p.m.

Sept. 12 – vs. Caston, 7 p.m.

Sept. 19 – at North Miami, 7 p.m.

Sept. 26 – vs. South Central (Union Mills), 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 3 – at Culver, 7 p.m.

Oct. 10 – vs. Triton, 7 p.m.

Oct. 17 – at North Judson, 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 24 – Class 1A, Sectional 42 quarterfinal

Class 1A, Sectional 42

Pioneer, Carroll (Flora), Caston, Frontier, North White, Taylor, Tri-County, Winamac