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Culver hopes South Central falls into their ‘trap’
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Class 1A, Sectional 41 semifinal: South Central (Union Mills) (5-3) at Culver (3-5), 7:30 p.m.
An offense with three running backs and two tight ends on every play might not sound like an explosive offense, but there was nothing plodding or methodical about Culver’s power-T attack against South Newton last week.
Culver accumulated 470 yards of offense without completing a pass and set a single-game record for points in a 68-34 win over South Newton.
Culver coach Mike Zehner called the win “good clinic film.”
Shane Shuman and Jason Cadle combined for 331 yards and eight touchdowns, and it was one play that seemed to work particularly well, according to coach Mike Zehner.
“It was pretty good,” Zehner said. “The trap game was really good obviously. That’s really the bread and butter of the offense. A lot of people will throw the deep ball or whatever, but ours is trap. That’s our home run. It was nice to see a team that doesn’t see our style of offense. … We knew we may have an advantage there, but they had a special quarterback in the (Kayden) Cruz kid. Shuman was a step away from breaking a lot of them, and Cadle really did a good job of breaking those traps for big gains. He’s so small that he kind of hides in behind our offensive line, and he’s tough to find.”
While South Central might figure to need to stop Shuman and Cadle, the Cavaliers will need to stop the South Central running duo of Aaron Hogan and Tony Guevara.
Hogan, a sophomore, ran for 223 yards and four touchdowns in a 40-6 win over Caston last week. Hogan also had an 85-yard touchdown run in the Satellites’ 28-24 win over Culver last year on the first carry of his prep career.
Guevara, a senior, ran for 77 yards and a touchdown against Caston. The 77 yards were actually a season low for Guevara, who has run for 1,128 yards on seven yards per carry in eight games.
“I think the Guevara kid went down last year, and actually the Hogan kid played quite a bit as a freshman,” Zehner said. “You’d say he's a backup, but he’s actually got a little bit more speed. I would say he’s more of an outside runner. He’s definitely faster than the Guevara kid, but the Guevara kid, he’s tough to bring down. … He’s a Shane Shuman fullback-style that he’s going to make some plays breaking tackles.”
The teams have split their last four meetings. Culver beat South Central 14-6 in the 2019 sectional semifinals in their most recent postseason meeting.
(Winner plays North Judson-Winamac winner in the sectional final on Nov. 5.)
