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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Winamac (0-2) at North White (2-0), 7 p.m.
The Winamac football team has suffered back-to-back shutout losses against Knox and Pioneer to start the season, and they are averaging just 62 yards of total offense.
“I just think some of the mental mistakes we’re making,” Winamac coach Josh Burgess said when asked what concerns him about the offense. “Some plays, we look pretty good. We’ve got things blocked pretty well. The backs get to where they need to get to. So I just think the consistency. Obviously, not scoring the first two games is a main concern, but I think that’s a product of our inconsistencies on offense. And honestly too, we’ve played two pretty good defenses the last couple of weeks.
“So I just think we need to clean some stuff up in practice and just get back to basics this week to what we’re doing offensively, and I think we’ll be fine.”
North White has won their first two games over Taylor and Frontier by an average margin of 28 points per game, but this is the first game for the Class 1A Vikings against a higher class opponent.
Senior quarterback Eli Quasebarth – he’s the son of coach Kirk Quasebarth – ran 22 times for 269 yards and four touchdowns in a 44-14 win over Frontier last week, and he also threw a touchdown pass to Kade DeBoard. Senior running back C.J. Hunt also ran for 121 yards last week.
“That’s their guy,” Burgess said of Quasebarth. “They want him to run it. They want him to throw it. They’ve got some nice pieces around him. A lot of their skill kids have been playing for four years now. I think four years ago, coach Quasebarth made the decision that, hey, we’re going to start these kids and live through some of those growing kids. They’ve got a nice complement, a couple nice backs, their tight end’s a nice player. … We’re going to have to do a really good job this week in practice of working to make sure that we’re ready to keep him contained. We’ve got to stay in our lanes, not just pass rush but in our run fits too.
“So we’ll have our work cut out for us. He’s a nice player and does a lot of nice things for them.” Winamac has won their last 15 meetings against North White and has not lost to the Vikings since 2004.
