Winamac football preview: Warriors seek further improvement with top returnees Adriano, Wolford

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

The Winamac football team has experienced gradual improvement in coach Josh Burgess’ three seasons as coach – two wins in 2022, three wins in 2023 and four wins in 2024.

As the Warriors move closer to the summit of the Hoosier North, Burgess is dragging a heavier sled: Winamac has 41 players on the roster after finishing last year with only 24.

Of the 41, only six are seniors, and only one of the six is a lineman – Kale Federer.

Quarterback Xavier Adriano is back after passing for 441 yards and five touchdowns as a freshman last year. He also ran for 177 yards.

“He’s more mature,” Burgess said. “We’ve asked him to grow up a little bit, and he has. He’s got a better command of the offense and what we want him to do. And he’s played a season too, so he has an idea of what it takes to get through a varsity season, so we’re looking for big things out of him. His maturity and his growth have been big for us so far.”

The top running back from last year is junior Tearson Wolford, who is listed at 6-1 and 200 pounds. He ran for 559 yards and five touchdowns last fall as a sophomore and was also a semistate qualifier in wrestling last winter.

Ethan Burgess, who ran for 140 yards and who also leads Warrior returnees with 128 yards receiving, is back for his senior season.

Coach Burgess sees the ball being distributed to multiple backs.

“Tearson is a big part of what we’re going to do, both offensively and defensively,” coach Burgess said. “He’s experienced coming back. But he’s not the only guy we have. We’ve got Ivan Cardenas. We’ve got Ethan Burgess. Xavier can carry the ball too. So we’re not a team that’s going to give a back 20 to 25 carries. We don’t want to be that. We want to spread the ball around to those four or five guys and get all them involved and get all those guys touches. Obviously, Tearson’s a big piece for us, and he’s going to be a good leader for us in  any phase of the game, but we’ve got some guys that are capable of doing some good things too besides him.”

Burgess said the linemen received extensive experience last year.

“We are, but we’re not young,” coach Burgess said when being asked about being young on the lines of scrimmage. “A lot of those guys that are sophomores played a lot for us last year. So yes, we’re still young in that sense, but we’ve got some experience on the line coming back. Our numbers are in our freshman and sophomore class. Our numbers are up overall. … We’ve got a lot of younger kids in. I’m happy with what those guys are doing. Our numbers aren’t great in the senior class, but we’ve got good seniors who are good leaders that are doing the job for us.”

Defensively, Winamac has cut their scoring average from 33 points allowed per game in Burgess’ first season to 30 to 27 last year.

Wolford and Cardenas are returnees at linebacker, and Ethan Burgess, Hayden Taylor and Louis Rugg III figure to provide a veteran presence in the secondary.

“We’re pretty multiple defensively, but honestly, we didn’t show a whole lot tonight,” coach Burgess said after Friday’s scrimmage against Rochester. “We’ll change some things around specifically for West Central, but we do that week to week no matter who we play. We try to be pretty multiple. We were a four(-man) front team. We played some five-front last year. We’ll do some different things in the back end with our linebackers, but I just wanted to get the kids on film tonight and just see what they can do from there.”

Schedule

Winamac begins the season with a road game at West Central this Friday. Then they will play No. 12 Frontier, No. 11 Pioneer, No. 13 Triton, No. 10 North Miami and No. 2 North Judson in a six-week span.

Winamac is sectional rivals with Frontier, Pioneer and No. 6 Carroll (Flora). Winamac has not won a sectional game since 2021.

Aug. 22 – at West Central, 7 p.m.

Aug. 29 – vs. Frontier, 7 p.m.

Sept. 5 – vs. Pioneer, 7 p.m.

Sept. 12 – at Culver, 7 p.m.

Sept. 19 – at Triton, 7 p.m.

Sept. 26 – vs. North Miami, 7 p.m.

Oct. 3 – vs. North Judson, 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 10 – at South Central (Union Mills), 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 17 – vs. Caston, 7 p.m.

Oct. 24 – Class 1A, Sectional 42 quarterfinal

Class 1A, Sectional 42

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