Andrean escapes Inferno with 7-0 win over Lowell

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

9-17-2005

2nd Qtr: No scoring.
3rd Qtr: ANDREAN (7-0) Chris Skinner, 27-yard pass from Jesse Repay. Adam Shingle PAT kick. 68 yard drive, 4 plays. 4:28 left.

LOWELL (9-16-2005) - Lowell played Crown Point a decent game last month before losing 16-6 in the season opener. CP is now 5-0. Two weeks later, Lowell played Griffith a much better game. wasting three long potential scoring drives before losing 21-0. Griffith is also 5-0.

Last Friday night, Lowell gave top-ranked defending 3A champion Andrean their best shot, at least defensively. The Devils pushed a scoreless tie late into the third quarter before a 27-yard touchdown pass from junior Jesse Repay to senior Chris Skinner gave the 59ers the only score of the game in a 7-0 win. Andrean is also now 5-0.

It was the best effort of the season by a Lowell team that was embarrassed 32-13 by a less formidable Morton team seven days earlier.

The Devils (1-4, 0-3 LAC) may indeed be looking ahead to Hammond (0-5, 0-3) in a battle of cellar dwellers next week. But on this night against a last place team, Andrean was lucky to get out alive with the win in regulation time heading home to play Hobart (4-1, 3-0 LAC) next week.

“There was some serious hitting out there,” said Andrean coach Brett St. Germain, whose team had won by 20 or more for three consecutive weeks.

“Our kids learned how to fight and battle tonight and that's what we wanted. You know, Lowell was 1-3 but they'd lost to arguably the two best teams in the region (Griffith and Crown Point) and both those teams had to battle to beat them. Then they lost last week (at Morton) without their star player and and they were a little deflated. But that's a helluva football team and they have just as good a chance to do this year what they did (win a sectional title) last year.”

But strength of schedule aside, the question still stands: Is Lowell, which is 1-4 for the first time in seven years, a good team losing to good teams or are the Devils just a buck and a quarter short against quality competition?

It probably doesn't matter. With only four weeks to go before the state tournament, Lowell has to start improving offensively immediately or the entire 2005 season is going out the back door, through the yard and into the trash.

“We've got no place else to go,” said veteran coach Kirk Kennedy, after his boys had left the field. “We put out a tremendous physical effort. But we keep making too many mistakes and we're just not making plays.”

“We're not getting any gains on first down. We're 2nd-and-long, 3rd-and-long. Bad reads on the option. Not throwing the ball to the right guy on pass plays. I don't know what's wrong with the offensive line.”

“We laid such an egg last week and felt bad about ourselves as human beings. Tonight we gave a strong physical effort and beat ourselves with our own mental mistakes. Which frustration is better?” asked Kennedy.

You can't say Lowell should have won against an Andrean team that won for the 12th time in a row. But they should have scored. The Devils were held to one first down in the first quarter which featured five punts. But Lowell mounted a 14-play drive in the second period which featured first down passes of 11 yards from Jimmy Ritter to Scott Gray and 17 yards from Ritter to Jeff Clemens, who played for the first time in two weeks.

But on a 3rd-and-11 from the Andrean 29, 59er linebacker Matt Ryan and big tackle Ed Reardon (6-1, 285) sacked Ritter for a six-yard loss. On 4^th-and-17, the Devils were too far away for a field goal and Ritter's short pass to Clemens gained only three yards.

Andrean also should have scored in the first half. On a 4th-and-1 from the three yard line, Repay gained two on a quarterback sneak. But with the clock running, no time outs and 20 seconds left, the 59ers lined up for another quarterback sneak which Lowell stopped at the one yard line, ending the half. Lowell got nothing out of a 70-yard, 10 play drive.

“We ran a QB sneak to get the first down,” explained St. Germain, who was visibly upset with his team's confusion, “and we told our QB to get up immediately and run 'a fire', which means to set up and down the ball. Somehow, he thought that someone said to run the same play again. That's youth.”

Lowell seemed to be in position to go ahead when they stopped Andrean's first possession of the second half. The 59ers started the third quarter with a no-huddle offense and drove to the Lowell 22-yard-line on a 10-play drive. But sophomore first time starter Caleb Layman sacked Repay for a 10-yard loss on 3^rd-and-four from the Devil 22. Then, on fourth down, Layman and Chris Lampa sacked Repay again to the roar of the home fans in a crowd of about 2000 on a cool fall night. St. Germain might have been worried at that point but his side survived.

“ Did we make some mistakes?” the third year coach said. “Yes. That's the first time we've been in some of these situations. But we challenged our kids to play with toughness and heart and we got it.”

The Devils' Gray broke a 21-yard run to the Andrean 34 moments later but Andrean stopped the drive at the 59er 30-yard-line, as Clemens, who caught four passes for 34 yards, dropped a third down pass that could have been a first down. Andrean then found offensive perfection for the only time all night.

Repay, a mobile roll out QB, hit Chris Skinner with a quick flat pass to the wide side of the field and Skinner broke a tackle and ran 21 yards to the Lowell 47. Junior Chandler Bowens (5-5, 150) zipped through the line for 17 yards to the Lowell 30. One play later, Repay (5-10, 160), rolled to his left and tossed a right-handed lob to the flag where Skinner beat two defenders for the only TD on the night.

“They made a play and we didn't,” summed up Kennedy. “That's the difference between our two teams so far.”

Andrean has coasted past Bishop Noll, Morton and Hammond. They're finesse teams and they needed to take some hard hits from the Lowell defense, led by Clemens, and linebackers Ryan King and Chris Lampa.

Many plays ended with Clemens closing from his strong safety position and leveling the ball carrier plus any tacklers who happened to be there. The Devils were without junior linebacker Ethan Winel (6-0, 205), but Kuiper filled in admirably. Lowell's defense is not the problem. Facing three Top 10 teams, they have allowed 18 points a game and have not given up a touchdown in the first quarter.

The Devils were much more physical than they were in a weak loss at Morton seven days earlier. Andrean, which was mediocre in a 34-0 win over winless Hammond last week, needed to step up to another level of intensity and they did.

“Both teams were in the same place tonight,” said St. Germain. “After last week, they question their kids' toughness. We questioned our kids' toughness. What you saw tonight was two teams respond. I thought Lowell kids were outstanding. I thought our kids were outstanding. Pretty or not.”

The winning coach in a 7-0 game can say that. Truthfully, it wasn't that bad a game. There was only one turnover and 11 penalties in the entire game. The fumble came on 2^nd-and-10 from the Andrean 35 with nine minutes left in the game when the 59er defense sacked Lowell back-up QB Josh Kuiper and he fumbled to Andrean's Matt Ryan. Kuiper, coming on in relief of Ritter, needed to throw that ball out of bounds and accept a 3^rd-and-10.

Lowell's final possession ended with two incompletions by Ritter at the Lowell 48 with 2:56 to play.

Kennedy gathered his QBs and a few other offensive players at the end of the game for an extended discussion of how they need to produce. The numbers are scary. Other than a 61-14 win over Calumet on Aug. 26, Lowell has scored only 20 points all season, all of them in the fourth quarter.

“You can beat a quality team like Andrean making the mistakes we made,” said Kennedy. “Some obvious and some not so obvious. We're just stopping ourselves.”

DEVIL NOTES: Andrean may have lost star outside linebacker Garrett Klein (6-2, 215) to a knee injury suffered in the fourth quarter. There was hope it was just a sprained knee as Klein is a key defender, returning off the 2004 state title team. But it seemed certain Klein would not be able to go next week against Hobart (4-1, 3-0).

Lowell's Ethan Winel did not play for the second consecutive week. The all-state wrestler suffered a broken bone in his leg on Sept. 2 but has been cleared to play and will be back as soon as he regains some mobility. Lowell's senior wide receiver Joe Wojcik suffered a broken collarbone in practice and didn't play Friday. Both players may be back at Munster on Sept. 30.

The crowd was noticeably smaller than for games against Crown Point and Griffith. Although the grandstand was full, few were standing. With the Devils not winning and not scoring much, the thought was there might be a rare less than capacity crowd at Lowell for next week's game with winless Hammond.

Kennedy hinted that Lowell doesn't really want to throw the ball as much (65 times) as they have in five games.

“We're not getting it done up front,” he said. “So we're forced to do things that we've practiced, but they're not in our basic game plan.”

Both of Lowell's quarterbacks dropped the snap a combined three times in the second quarter, wasting plays. The QB-center exchange had not been a problem in previous games.

Junior Josh Kuiper was utilized as a combination linebacker-safety against Andrean's passing game and he'll probably be in that position again next week against Hammond, which threw 30 passes in a 14-7 loss to Highland Friday night.

Even counting Morton (3-2), which got crushed 58-13 by Griffith Friday, the combined record of the four teams to beat Lowell is 18-2.

LAKE (BLACK DIVISION)
ALL TIMES EASTERN STANDARD
	CONF.	PTS	OPP	ALL	PTS	OPP
Andrean	3- 0	76	20	5- 0	140	41
Griffith	3- 0	142	13	5- 0	248	33
Hobart	3- 0	88	38	4- 1	138	70
Highland	2- 1	36	28	3- 2	77	82
Hammond Morton	1- 2	65	106	3- 2	150	112
Munster	0- 3	26	107	2- 3	105	136
Lowell	0- 3	13	60	1- 4	80	90
Hammond	0- 3	26	100	0- 5	51	135
Friday, Sep. 9
Andrean 34, Hammond 0‡
Griffith 63, Munster 0‡
Hammond Morton 32, Lowell 13‡
Hobart 14, Highland 0‡
Friday, Sep. 16
Andrean 7, Lowell 0‡
Griffith 58, Hammond Morton 13‡
Highland 14, Hammond 7‡
Hobart 22, Munster 19‡
Friday, Sep. 23
Griffith at Highland‡, 7 pm
Hammond at Lowell‡, 7 pm
Hammond Morton at Munster‡, 7 pm
Hobart at Andrean‡, 7 pm
‡ Conference game

Team	1	2	3	4	F
3A No. 1 Andrean (5-0)	0	0	7	0	7
LOWELL (1-4)	0	0	0	0	0