Week 5 football preview: Zebra defense focusing on Lewis Cass’ Smith

Valley to host defensive-minded LaVille; Caston to visit winless Satellites; Pioneer, NM ground-oriented attacks to clash; Winamac seeks to slow down Triton offense; Culver heads to N. Judson

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Brant Beck

Lewis Cass (3-1, 3-0 Three Rivers Conference) at Rochester (3-1, 3-0), 7 p.m.

In last week’s 56-7 win over Wabash last week, Apaches quarterback Haiden McWhirt threw the ball 42 times out of the shotgun formation in their spread offense.

Now they will face Lewis Cass, who has thrown the ball 26 times in four games combined.

Last week, the Zebra defense had to be mindful of Wabash receiver DaVon Osborn, who wound up catching nine passes for 86 yards and a touchdown. Rochester coach Ron Shaffer said, however, in praise of his team’s tackling that on only one catch was Osborn’s yards after catch anything more than “minimal.”

Now they will face a Lewis Cass team that does not have anybody with more than five receptions on the season, and the player with the team-leading five receptions is fullback Gavin Smith. Smith also leads Lewis Cass with 570 rushing yards; no other Lewis Cass player has more than 106.

Rochester coach Ron Shaffer said that stopping Smith will be the defense’s primary objective. Smith averages 142 yards rushing per game. The Zebra defense allows 29 yards rushing per game and only 3.5 points per game.

“He was a halfback last year, and now he’s at fullback for them, so they’re featuring him,” Shaffer said. “He’s a strong, tough runner between the tackles. They’ll give it to him on some toss plays. I think he leads our conference in rushing. … I would assume they’re going to give him the ball about 30 times on Friday night if they can. I just think for them to be successful, he’s going to have to have a good game, and we have to shut him down for us to be successful.”

Cole Rush is Lewis Cass’ quarterback, and Shaffer said his role in the offense is more than just handing the ball off to Smith.

“He is somewhat of a game manager, but he can throw the ball really well,” Shaffer said. “He struggled a little bit with his accuracy. He’ll probably be on point and be great Friday night. But I think he’s completed 16 passes, a majority of them to the fullback out of the backfield. He’s not afraid to take shots. He did throw a pick-six against Peru late in the first half right before the end of the half. Made that game very close, and I’m sure he’s learned from that situation because he came back against Manchester and had a really nice throw to one of the halfbacks for a touchdown. He’s more than a game manager. He can throw the ball, and he can hurt you in the passing game.”

Lewis Cass’ defensive task might be similar – stopping the opposing fullback. They did not succeed at that last year as Brant Beck ran for a career-high 229 yards in a 50-22 win over Lewis Cass in Walton. Beck’s only other 200-yard rushing game in his career came last week, when he ran for 206 yards against Wabash.

He comes in 56 yards shy of 4,000 for his career.

Meanwhile, it could be argued that Lewis Cass is winning in spite of its run defense and not because of it. They allowed 346 rushing yards in a 34-32 win over Peru two weeks ago and 287 yards rushing in an 18-14 win over Manchester last week.

“It’s one of those deals (where) you’re really going to have to play good football against them, and they’re resilient,” Shaffer said. “They will not stop playing. They’re tough. They keep after you on both sides of the ball. I think coach (Clayton) Mannering has got them playing good Lewis Cass football.”

And the Zebras have had more than 300 yards rushing in all three of its wins. They averaged 17 yards per carry as a team last week. The first two plays from scrimmage, which Shaffer said were planned in practice well before the game, netted 41 yards and set the tone as a way to “get after them.”

“I think so,” Shaffer answered when asked if the offensive line is becoming more cohesive. “Very aggressive, I think, is a good way to put it too. We want to get on top of the defense in a hurry and get the backs through the hole fast, and a lot of our plays on that night were very fast-hitting.”

Shaffer said that offensive guard-defensive end Mason Hisey was expected to practice and play this week. He left the Wabash game with a left knee injury.

LaVille (2-2, 0-1 Indiana Northern State Conference) at Tippecanoe Valley (2-2, 0-1), 7 p.m.

Grady Moriarty

Valley slowed down quarterback and 7,000-yard rusher Myles McLaughlin to 6.4 yards per carry last week. Still, the indefatigable McLaughlin ran 50 times for 319 yards and five touchdowns in a 36-21 loss that marked Valley’s first regular season loss at home since 2020.

And McLaughlin also had 86 passing yards.

“On one hand, I was glad that we did slow him down, and they had to revert to their passing game,” Valley coach Stephen Moriarty said. “On the other hand, I was disappointed that they had so many passing yards to get those first downs. We played them tough, and I was very proud of our kids for not giving up, and I thought we played hard the whole game, even to the bitter end when we had a shot. We needed about another quarter is what we needed.”

Valley’s offense was more one-dimensional – 279 yards rushing, 4 yards passing against Knox.  But they averaged over 11 yards per carry, and that included Wes Parker’s 95-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. Parker had 161 yards rushing, Grady Moriarty had 60 on three carries, and Owen Omondi had 46 on five carries.

“It is concerning,” Moriarty said of the passing attack. “You don’t want to be one aspect of the offense. You need to have multiple. So going through and looking at how we can improve our pass protection and getting rid of the ball quicker, I think, are some of the things that we’ve been focusing on at least since Monday.”

Valley will look to break their two-game losing streak when they host LaVille in the second game of a four-game homestand. LaVille will try to recover after a 7-6 loss to Bremen last week.

LaVille relies on a balanced offense – 51 percent passes, 49 percent runs, according to Moriarty – led by senior quarterback Brayden Schwitz and senior running back Brayden Stafford.

“He’s very accurate,” Moriarty said of Schwitz. “He might have run the ball, but he has great patience in the pocket, and their offensive line does a great job of blocking for him. He has good timing on knowing when to get it out quickly, and the other thing is to let routes develop sometimes too. He is a tough challenge, and I have been very impressed with his accuracy and his decision-making.”

Defensively, LaVille allows just nine points per game for Jeff Kaiser, who is both the head coach and defensive coordinator. Kaiser was the defensive coordinator on Will Hostrawser’s staff and kept that job even after ascending to the head coaching job following Hostrawser’s retirement from coaching following the 2022 season.

LaVille runs a 3-4 scheme and is well known for its linebacker play.

“They kept the exact same scheme as they did before, and coach Kaiser, he coaches the defense as well, and he likes the 3-4 defense,” Moriarty said. “It’s difficult because it’s hard to get to their linebackers sometimes. With only three down linemen, we can get those blocked for our bigger guys blocking in space for those flying in at a good angle, sometimes it’s hard to pick up those linebackers.”

Moriarty said Gage Overbey will play a “bigger role” at defensive end. He did not play defense at all against Knox. Overbey has been recovering from a leg injury suffered against Rochester Aug. 29.

Caston (1-3, 0-2 Hoosier North) at South Central (Union Mills) (0-4, 0-2), 7:30 p.m.

• Caston has lost two straight games, including a 45-13 loss to Pioneer last week. South Central has lost five straight games dating back to last year and 12 of their last 13. They lost 63-0 to Triton last week.

• Caston defeated South Central 48-14 at the Comet Crater last year. That was their largest margin of victory in a conference game since the start of the Hoosier North in 2015 and their largest margin of victory in any conference game since 2011.

• The Caston defense yielded 387 rushing yards to Pioneer last week. South Central has had just 60 rushing yards in their last two games combined.

• Caston is 6-4 in their last 10 meetings with South Central dating back to 1999.

Pioneer (3-1, 2-0 Hoosier North) at North Miami (3-1, 1-1), 7 p.m.

• Class 1A, No. 11 Pioneer has won two straight games, including a 45-13 win over Caston last week. Class 1A, No. 10 North Miami suffered their first loss when they lost to North Judson 24-16 last week.

• Pioneer had three different 100-yard rushers against Caston last week. Meanwhile, the North Miami defense gave up 269 rushing yards to North Judson.

• North Miami had 240 rushing yards of their own last week, but they did not complete a pass in four attempts. Lake Musall averages 122 yards rushing per game, Ryan Meredith averages 99, and quarterback Hartley Hoover averages 89. Despite the win, Pioneer gave up 242 rushing yards to Caston last week.

• Pioneer is making their first trip to North Miami since a 28-7 win in the 2008 sectional final. Last year’s 21-14 win at The Panther Pit was the only other matchup between the teams in the last 30 years.

Winamac (1-3, 1-1 Hoosier North) at Triton (3-1, 2-0), 7 p.m.

• Winamac comes in off a 30-22 win over Culver in which they let a 14-0 lead slip but bounced back after trailing 22-14 at halftime.

• Triton lost their opener to LaVille but has bounced back with three straight wins, including a 63-0 rout of South Central last week.

• Winamac has lost the last three meetings against Triton by a combined score of 105-12. That followed a three-game winning streak over Triton from 2019-21.

• Triton points by game: 0, 14, 48, 63. Triton running back Jayden Overmyer’s rushing yards by game: 38, 109, 281, 183.

Culver (1-3, 0-2 Hoosier North) at North Judson (3-1, 2-0), 7:30 p.m.

• Culver has lost three straight since a season-opening win over Attica, including a 30-22 loss to Winamac last week. Meanwhile, North Judson has won three straight since a season-opening loss to Knox, including a 24-16 win at North Miami last week that moved them up to No. 5 in this week’s USA Today media Class 1A poll.

• The North Judson defense has allowed only two passing touchdowns all season. Culver quarterback Jonas McCuen threw three touchdown passes, all to his brother Caleb, in the second quarter last week against Winamac.

• North Judson has won the last 12 meetings against Culver. Culver has not beaten North Judson since 2017. That includes sectional meetings in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024.