BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
There are two things about Winamac football which sound contradictory but are both true.
Winamac dropped from Class 2A to Class 1A.
Winamac is the largest school in their conference in terms of enrollment.
After Lafayette Central Catholic eliminated them in a 2A sectional each of the last two years, Winamac is now the sixth largest school in Class 1A.
And with LaVille and Knox now out of the Hoosier North and North Miami and South Central (Union Mills) now in, Winamac has the largest enrollment in the conference at 360.
They are not in a sectional with North Judson, who is a three-time defending regional champion. They are also not in a sectional with any private school teams.
Their schedule consists entirely of Class 1A teams.
First-team all-conference players Max Keller and Wyatt Wheeler, anchors on the line of scrimmage, graduated. Tucker Fox, who was honorable mention all-conference, also graduated.
Maddox Bucinski and Jadon Jones, the top two rushers, also graduated. So did Jayse Bentle, last year’s team leader in receiving yards.
The team had a seven-on-seven scrimmage at Kokomo and also had a “thud” scrimmage against Carroll (Flora) but did most of their activities within the school.
One of the top returnees is Talen Garner, who was also honorable mention all-conference and figures to be a key as a left guard on offense.
“Talen Garner is a senior, and he’s a really key leader for us on both sides of the offense and defense lines,” Burgess said. “He’s a huge weight room guy. He leads by example. He does a good of for us there.”
Another senior offensive lineman is Reed Anderson. Josh Crawford has moved from tight end to tackle, and sophomore Cody Wheeler is in his second season as a starter on the offensive line.
Addison Allen, a senior fullback is also back.
Burgess said that Allen getting few touches during the scrimmage against Rochester Friday was on purpose.
“We’re going to have some experience with some of our skill positions,” Burgess said. “Addison Allen, the kid at fullback, has got some experience for us and safety as well. We’ve got Ethan Burgess at a wingback for us.”
Winamac will start freshman Xavier Adriano at quarterback. Listed at 6-0 and 200 pounds, Burgess said he began to settle into the role during the scrimmage.
“A lot of physical tools,” Burgess said of Adriano. “He just needs to learn how to play quarterback at the high school level. I thought as the scrimmage went on, he started to figure some things out and did a little better job with his reads, so we look for good things from him.”
Adriano will take snaps from another freshman, Aaron Hardin.
Defensively, Burgess emphasizes flexibility depending on the opponent.
“We’re pretty multiple depending on the team we play and the situation,” Burgess said. “We’ll change around a little bit. We’ve got some different packages that we like to run, pretty team-dependent. ‘Multiple’ is a good word to describe what we’re going to do defensively.”
Burgess said he likes the new schedule format in which every Hoosier North team will start with two nonconference games followed by seven conference games. Winamac will open with a home game against West Central and a road game against Frontier.
The Pioneer game moves from Week 2 to Week 3. The North Judson game is pushed back from Week 5 to Week 7.
“We always talk about the mental approach,” Burgess said. “We’ve got kids who had a good summer weight room-wise. I give our administration a lot of credit. I’ve got six advanced P.E. (physical education) classes now, so I’m in the weight room all day, and we’ve got all our kids in class, save for a couple freshmen, and they’ll roll in in the morning or they’ll roll in at semester.
“So I think physically we’re starting to get our kids where they need to be. It’s the mental aspect as far as mental preparation, knowing your assignments, formation recognition defensively and offensively, making sure we’re in the right sets and we’re doing the right things. Just making sure that you bring the right mental approach to practice every day and then that mental approach to Friday night as well. Our kids probably get tired of hearing me say it: I always tell them physically I’m not too worried about us. It’s the mental. What do you need to do on a day-to-day basis to mentally be ready to handle a Friday night situation?”
Burgess’ coaching staff consists entirely of Winamac grads: Brandon Burgess, Mark Hendryx, Levi Schultz, Guy Rugg, Kyle Burgess and Matt Swartzell.
“We’re very fortunate to have the guys on staff that we do,” coach Burgess said. “And they’re good football guys, but they’re better people, and they treat the kids the right way, and that’s really the first thing that I look for when we’re looking at coaches – how they establish those relationships with the kids. If they can do that, then the coaching takes care of itself.”
Schedule
West Central movies up from Week 7 to Week 1. Frontier is an addition to the schedule. Pioneer moves from Week 2 to Week 3. Culver moves up from Week 6 to Week 4. Triton moves up from Week 9 to Week 5. New conference rivals North Miami and South Central appear in Week 6 and Week 8, respectively. Caston, also a sectional rival, moves from Week 8 to Week 9.
Aug. 23 – vs. West Central, 7 p.m.
Aug. 30 – at Frontier, 7 p.m.
Sept. 6 – at Pioneer, 7 p.m.
Sept. 13 – vs. Culver, 7 p.m.
Sept. 20 – vs. Triton, 7 p.m.
Sept. 27 – at North Miami, 7 p.m.
Oct. 4 – at North Judson, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 11 – vs. South Central (Union Mills), 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 18 – at Caston, 7 p.m.
Oct. 25 – Class 1A, Sectional 42 quarterfinal
Class 1A, Sectional 42
Winamac, Carroll (Flora), Caston, Frontier, North White, Pioneer, Taylor, Tri-County
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