Andrean 59ers squeeze out last minute 35-28 win over Lowell Red Devils

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

8-21-2004

Friday, Sep. 17, 2004,  62 degrees, dry in Merrillville

1st Q: ANDREAN (7-0) Jake Kocal, 76-yard pass (6^th TD catch) from Tommy Finn (8^th TD pass). 77-yard drive, 3 plays – Jake Kocal kick. 10:14 left.

LOWELL (7-7) Toby Goetz, 10-yard run. (11^th TD) 78-yard drive, 14 plays - Matt Seidel kick. 2:16 left.

ANDREAN (14-7) Jake Kocal (7^th TD catch), 69-yard pass from Tommy Finn (9^th TD pass). 66 yards, 2 plays - Jake Kocal kick. 0:15 left.

2nd Q:  LOWELL (14-14) Toby Goetz, 6-yard run, (12^th TD) 44-yard drive, 10 plays - Matt Seidel kick. 2:56 left.
3rd Q:  ANDREAN (21-14) Tommy Finn, 1-yard run (2nd TD). 80 yards, 15 plays – Jake Kocal kick. 4:06 left.

LOWELL (21-21) Toby Goetz, 65-yard run (13^th TD). 65 yards, 1 play – Matt Seidel kick – 3:25 left.

ANDREAN (28-21) Joaquin Rodriguez, 42-yard screen pass (5^th TD, 1^st TD catch). 75 yards, 8 plays - Jake Kocal kick. 1:28 left

4th Q:  LOWELL (28-28) Toby Goetz, 7-yard run (14th TD). 74 yards, 9 plays - Matt Seidel kick.  8:23 left.

ANDREAN (35-28) Joaquin Rodriguez, 2-yard run (6^th TD, 5^th TD run) 85 yards, 11 plays – Jake Kocal kick - 0:20 left.

Game Statistics

MERRILLVILLE (9-17-2004) - Everybody was happy except the defensive coaches in this one. If Lowell and Andrean are still playing in the middle of November, a lot of us who were there will remember the night they got together on 59^th street at the north end of Merrillville. It was a game where both sides went up there swinging. No bunts. No sacrifices. A game full of home runs. By the home run hitters.

The 3,500 in attendance on a vintage, 60-degree fall night won't recall that it was a two-yard run by Joaquin Rodriguez with 20 seconds left at the end of an 85-yard Andrean drive that pushed the Class 3A No. 4 59ers (5-0) over the top. The fans also won't remember that Lowell scored in every quarter against an Andrean defense that had allowed only nine points per game over the first four weeks.

The game will stand tall for two statistic lines. Andrean quarterback Tommy Finn completed 20 of 30 passes for a career-high 410 yards. Lowell halfback Toby Goetz carried 33 times for an outrageous 259 yards. If you came to see the top offensive player on each team, you didn't go home disappointed. Unless again, you coach some of those defensive players.

“How do you stop him?” asked Andrean coach Brett St. Germain of Goetz, who scored all four Lowell touchdowns. “WE couldn't stop him. The kid's a wrecking ball. It's not some scheme they're trying to confuse you on. It's just base blocking, man on man. They get off the ball so well and they're well coached. We thought our big guys would cause them problems but that didn't happen.”

Lowell's little guys didn't cause Andrean's passing attack any problems. Jake Kocal caught seven passes for 221 yards and 59er teammate Ty Harangody caught 10 more for 119 yards. Like the truck stop off the interstate, they were open all night.

“We didn't cover anybody,” said a very unhappy Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy afterwards. “It looked like we didn't practice. Defensively that's what it looked like. I can understand giving up a big play, making some adjustments and tightening up. But we played scared. Even down near the goal line, they're completing passes and there's not as much ground to cover and we still give them seven or eight yards cushion."

"Our defensive backs are looking in the backfield while their receivers are running by us. Why are you looking in the backfield? My problem has nothing to do on offense. We had a good night on offense and we had a good night in the kicking game. As good a night like Toby had again tonight, somebody was doing a lot of good things up front.”

“But they're over there celebrating,” he said, pointing to Andrean. “And we gave it to them. They're celebrating like they are the better team and I don't think they are.”

Andrean came in with several long winning streaks, including 39 in a row over Northwest Indiana teams, 30 in a row in the regular season and 20 in a row in the Lake Athletic Conference Black Division. As the sun was setting behind the old school, it appeared they would extend those streaks easily. On the third play of the game. Finn, the 6-foot-1 senior quarterback rolled out and lofted a high-arching pass to Kocal, who beat single coverage by 5-10 yards and scored his sixth TD of the year with just 1:46 gone.

Lowell retaliated with a 78-yard drive in 14 plays. Goetz, Lowell's 5-11, 216-pound runner, coming off a 302 yards rushing game last week in Lowell's 52-21 win over Morton, gained 44 yards on nine carries including a 10-yard TD run with 2:16 left in the first quarter. The 7-7 tie did not hold for long. On Andrean's second play after the Lowell kickoff, Finn faked handoffs to the tailback and to a wide receiver before he launched another long bomb that found Kocal, 20 yards behind anyone from Lowell. The 69-yard TD made it 14-7 with 1:15 left in the first period.

Lowell again rallied. After a short Andrean punt, Lowell drove 44 yards in 12 plays with Goetz, who became Lowell's 10^th 1,000-yard rusher in 11 years, broke off right guard to score from six yards away just 2:56 before halftime.

Lowell had shown some difficulty covering the pass in the first four weeks and, with size mismatches on the corners, it wasn't that big a surprise to see QB Tommy Finn throw successfully. Andrean drove 80 yards at the start of the third quarter. Finn hit 5-of-7 tosses, all five to the 6-foot-3, 230-pound Harangody. Finn's QB sneak made it 21-14 with 4:06 left in the third quarter. The biggest shock was to see Andrean, which had held four foes to just 282 yards rushing, overmatched at the line of scrimmage against the Red Devils' small offensive line, led by Randy Lukasik (5-9, 199), Larin Childress (5-9, 235) and Randy Layman (6-0, 233), and Goetz, the quick starting big back with 4.7 speed. On the first play after Andrean's third quarter TD, Goetz busted loose past the center Lukasik and right guard Childress and ran free into the secondary, outrunning the 59er secondary for a 65-yard TD.

Andrean again rallied immediately, going 75 yards in seven plays. On a 2^nd-and-10 from the Lowell 42, Finn rolled out to the right and threw a score back to the left side where Joaquin Rodriguez grabbed the pass uncontested and zig-zagged through the Devils secondary for the 28-21 score with 1:28 left in the third quarter.

With the Friday night crowd getting a big kick out of the show, Lowell rallied to tie the game. Scott Schulz had a 33-yard run called back on a holding penalty. But Goetz, who finished the night with an unofficial 1,013 yards on 117 carries, ripped off gains of 16 and 28 yards, setting up his own seven yard run that tied the game with 8:23 to go.

Then the pivotal stretch. Andrean fumbled the kickoff, with Jeff Clemens recovering at the Andrean 25 yard line. Goetz gained five and three yards on the first two plays. But the big back picked up only one yard on third down and was stopped for a two-yard loss by Kellen Mackin and tackle leader Steve Egan (6-4, 215) on fourth down with 6:16 left in the game.

“These kids have the ability to make plays when they need to,” said St. Germain, in his second year as coach of Northwest Indiana's winningest 21^st century program (44 wins in the last 48 games). “They've had that ability since before I got here. I really don't have anything to do with it. I don't know how to explain it.”

Andrean began the winning drive with a 30-yard pass down the visitors' sideline to Kocal, who beat Michael Dowling in a 1-on-1 situation and took the ball to the Red Devils' 45-yard line. On a 3^rd-and 10, moments later, Finn, who also starts in basketball and baseball, hit a roll-out 13 yard pass to Harangody, who has been recruited to play for Indiana University next season. The entire 59er offensive unit moved calmly down the field as the clock ran down with Finn firing a perfect pass to Kocal at the 2-yard-line in the final minute.

Without calling time out, Andrean lined up and Finn handed to Rodriguez (5-10, 180) who pushed his way into the end zone over right guard to make it 35-28 with 20 seconds left. With very little time left, Lowell made a little noise as Schulz hit junior halfback Scott Gray for a 25-yard gain. Andrean was penalized for roughing the passer on the play, moving 15 more yards to the Andrean 38-yard-line.
The 59ers jumped offside on the next play, moving the ball to the 33-yard-line. But with only five seconds left, Andrean's Garrett Klein sacked Schulz before he could throw the ball, allowing the clock run out.

“We had a kid with a concussion tonight, Chris Skinner. He couldn't continue,” said St. Germain. “But he's coming up to me at halftime saying he's sorry. He was sorry he couldn't go back in but he didn't know where he was really. We had a kid who tried to play tonight, Jeff Klobucar (6-1, 195) who'll have to go see the doctor next week. He may need surgery. He tried to play tonight and he just couldn't go. There were these sub-plots tonight of players who couldn't go.”

Once Lowell gets over the fact that they should have won, they'll credit the offensive line for a miraculous job against a team that outmanned them 20-30 pounds a man across the line, and they'll smile at little things like senior Matt Seidel, who was 4-of-4 on extra points after the Devils had failed on 11 of 23 conversions in four weeks. But when anybody throws for 410 yards on your defense, you don't ride home on a happy bus.

“To play pass defense in the secondary,” said Kennedy, “you have to focus on what your assignment is whether it's pass coverage or man coverage. You cannot be looking in the backfield. I can't tell you how many times we've told them that. Maybe we're not doing a good enough job.”

Finn is doing a good enough job, especially on that last drive.

“Obviously, we're not going to throw on every play because we want to chew up clock,” said St. Germain. "Give our credit to the O-line. We knew they were going to come out and blitz us. They had to. I'm sure they saw that as our weakness. Our line did a great job tonight.”

Andrean rallied with a 99-yard fourth quarter drive to beat Chesterton 18-13. They came from two touchdowns behind against Hammond high. When they go to a spread offense with four wide receivers and the elusive Finn in the 'shotgun' (QB five yards behind the center) formation, they excel at exploiting other team's weaknesses.

“One of our strengths is," said Finn, "we want to give our athletes a chance to make plays. We look for matchups, weaknesses. How they're going to play us. Coach puts us in position to make plays."

Some of Andrean's success was not due to their own excellence. Lowell, with small players like Michael Dowling (5-9, 145), Scott Schulz (5-9, 157), Kyle Mitsch (5-10, 175) on the corners can't match up with players like Matt Ernest (6-2, 160) of Crown Point, Devon Harper (6-4, 185) of Morton and Ty Harangody (6-3, 230) of Andrean. But Kennedy insists on a more organized and thinking effort. No one Lowell will see the rest of the regular season and in sectional play can match Finn, Harangody and Kocal.

The only state class passing attack they could face before the 4A Northern semistate would be possible regional foe Plymouth (4-0), with prolific passer Chad Clinton and 6-4 wide receiver Alex Quintana. But Andrean clearly displayed how to beat Lowell if they can't improve. The secondary was beaten short and deep and a defense as quick as Lowell's has to be able to take away one of those two options.

“We were timid,” said Kennedy. “We were soft. We played not to get beat. Toby's a horse. But he's not going to have night like that by himself. The line had a lot to do with it. It's just a shame it was not enough. If you're going to get beat, get beat on your best night. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. That's exactly what happened.”

NINER NOTES:  Tommy Finn also plays safely and had to confront Goetz at times Friday night. “I don't know if I hit him,” said Finn. “He hit me. He's a real football player. He's hard-nosed. I could have had a couple of touchdown-saving tackles but he ripped through my arms."

There truthfully is no rivalry between Lowell and Andrean. The football programs actually supported each other in the regional playoffs last year.

“Five or 10 of us went to their game (regional final with East Noble in Lowell) last year because we played the next night (against Hamilton Heights)," Finn recalled.  "A couple of seniors and a couple of juniors. At halftime, we went up into the student body. We were leading the cheers and they really appreciated that. They came to our game the next night and they were consoling us when we lost.
We have a lot of respect for these guys. Of course, when they came on the field tonight, it's all business.”

Goetz is averaging over 201 yards per game, more than any Lowell back ever has over a full season. Michael Pickett, who gained 2,256 yards in 13 games (173.5) in 1994, is the Red Devil record holder. Typically, a running backs' average goes down as the season progresses because the runner gets tired and teams stack the defense to stop one player. But the record shows that Goetz has averaged 200 yards against Calumet (2-3), Morton (2-3), Griffith (4-1), Crown Point (2-3) and Andrean (5-0). The final four part of Lowell's schedule, Hammond (2-3), Munster (2-3), Highland (3-2) and Hobart (4-1) is, except for Hobart, weak against the run.

A 200-yard average is unlikely but, assuming Lowell also has two or three playoff games, a 2,000-yard season is not.

Andrean 35, Lowell 28

TOTAL YARDS
ANDREAN - 476 (410 yards passing)
LOWELL - 333 (308 yards rushing)

FIRST DOWNS
ANDREAN - 16, LOWELL - 13

PASSING
Tommy Finn (A) 20-of-30, 410 yards, 3 TDs, 1 interception
Scott Schulz (L) 1-of-2, 25 yards

RECEIVING
Ty Harangody (A) 10 – 119 yards; Jake Kocal (A) 7 – 221 yards, 2 TDs
Dominic Tournicasa (A) 1 – 14 yards; Joaquin Rodriguez (A) 2 – 56 yards, TD
Scott Gray (L) 1 – 25 yards

RUSHING - Andrean 12 – 66 yards; Lowell 47 carries – 308 yards
Tommy Finn (A) 9 – 59 yards, TD; Joaquin Rodriguez (A) 3 – 7 yards
Alex Kadish (A) 1 – 0 yards
Toby Goetz (L) 33 – 259 yards, 4 Tds; Ethan Winel (L) 8 – 32 yards
Scott Schulz (L) 5 – 8 yards (2 sacks -14); Jeff Clemens (L) 1 – 9 yards

TURNOVERS: LOWELL – 0; ANDREAN – 2 (1 fumble)

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Revised: September 18, 2004 .