Week 1, NW Indiana HS Football: Crown Point 17, Lowell 0

Friday, Aug. 18, 2006, 78 degrees, overcast , 90% humidity, season opener in Crown Point

1st Qtr: CP (7-0) Tommy Parks, 4-yard pass from Blake Mascarello. Michael Lipton kick. 25-yard, 4 play drive after fumbled punt. 5:23 left.

CP (10-0) Michael Lipton, 23-yard field goal. 11-yard drive, 6 plays after interception by Mike Damjanovic. 1:27 left.
2nd Qtr: No scoring.
3rd Qtr: CP (17-0) Matt Ernest, 19-yard pass from Blake Mascarello. Michael Lipton kick. 11-yard, 3 play drive after Nick Hladek recovered Max Znika's fumble. 3:17 left.
4th Qtr: No scoring.

Josh Kuiper 4-of-9, 30 yards, one INT; Blake Mascarello 8-of-15, 83 yards, 2 TDS

RUSHING:

LOWELL (32-121) Max Znika 5-12, fumble, Danny Remboski 2-1, fumble, Steffan Peck 13-76, fumble. Josh Kuiper 11-28 (2 sacks) ;

CP (36-177) Jon Sertich 22-142, Tommy Parks 6-6, Nick Bruno 20-11, Blake Mascarello 6 (-2) 2 sackS

RECEIVING:

CP: Tommy Parks (FB) 4-56, TD; Matt Ernest (WR) 1-19, TD; Ryan Forney (WR) 2-10; Jon Sertich (HB) 1 (-2)

LOWELL (8-18-2006) - By the end of the high school football regular season, most everyone has totally forgotten the opening game. For Crown Point and Lowell in 2006, that won't be difficult. It was a bad game played on a bad night. Crown Point beat Lowell 17-0 to start the 2006 season in front of almost 4,500 fans on a 90 percent humidity night out behind Crown Point high school and neither side was overly happy with it.

"I thought we played well in a lot of spots," said sixth year CP coach Chip Pettit, trying to find bright spots. "But offensively we stumbled around. They turned it over and we weren't any more efficient. It was just bad offensive football."

Lowell QB Joshua Kuiper #14 hands off to RB Steffan Peck as Crown Point LB Nick Cottrell #33 penetrates the Red Devil backfield, 8-18-06.

Lowell QB Josh Kuiper threw an ill-advised pass as he was being tackled by Bulldog end Nick Hladek, which led to a first quarter interception by Crown Point's Mike Damjanovic.

Crown Point offensive linemen Andrew Krumwied #65, Mat Childress #71, Matt Polus #62, Kurt Wermers #70 and Cody Blue #61 in the "set" position for Bulldog signal caller Mascarello #6. CP won 17-0 over the defending 4A sate champions, 8-18-06.

Members of the CP offense, including Cody Blue #61, receiver Ryan Forney #12, and Matt Polus #62 await the officials call during a first down measurement in the Lowell game, 8-18-06.

H-back Tommy Parks #49, who scored the first TD on a 4-yard pass from Mascarello, is congratulated by teammates Krumwied #65, Zach Cecich #89 and Matt Ernest #15 in the Bulldogs' 17-0 win over Lowell, 8-18-06.

Lowell most certainly did turn it over. Lowell fumbled five times, two of them gift-wrapping Crown Point touchdowns. Lowell quarterback Josh Kuiper's ill-advised toss while being sacked was intercepted in the first quarter, leading to Mike Lipton's first career field goal.

But that was it. On a summer night when mosquitoes ruled on the rolling prairie out behind the three-year old Crown Point high school, there were no sustained drives for points on either side. Not one. Lowell fumbled five times and Crown Point never gained more than three first downs in succession. Both sides played hard and a sellout crowd of about 4,500 waited patiently in the heat.

"I thought we made a few mistakes defensively, observed Pettit. "I'm not all together unpleased. Hey, we shut out the state champs. I've told you every year I've been here that we improve more from week one to week two than at any other time. And we need to again."

Lowell agrees. The Devils, who won the 4A state championship in 2005 after losing the season opener at home 16-6 to Crown Point, made more mistakes on offense in this game than they did a year ago.

"If you're going to get beat," said Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy. "Get beat playing your best, and that just wasn't the case tonight. We put our defense's backs against the wall time and time again and they responded more often than not. But on offense, this was the same kind of game we played last year. We dug ourselves a hole and we couldn't get out of it. When we had to elevate our play and respond, we didn't have an answer. And, at times, it looked like we didn't care that we didn't have an answer and that concerns me."

A late arriving crowd saw a flurry of mistakes in the first five minutes. Lowell's Steffan Peck fumbled on the second scrimmage play of the game with CP's Joe Patrick recovering at the Lowell 46-yard-line. After a 22-yard pass from CP's Blake Mascarello to senior running back Tommy Parks, Macarello and Jon Sertich had a miscue on a handoff and that fumble was grabbed by Lowell defensive end Jeff Barker.

Three plays later, Lowell junior fullback Danny Remboski fumbled to CP's Mike Damjanovic at the Lowell 35 and when the Devils defense stopped Crown Point, Peck dropped Matt Ernest's punt at the Lowell 25. After five minutes of a stunning series of fumbles, CP drove 25 yards to score with Mascarello firing a four-yard roll out pass to Parks with 5:23 left in the opening quarter. Three plays later, Lowell's new QB Josh Kuiper made a poor decision and tried to throw while he was behind sacked by junior Bulldog end Nick Hladek. Damajonvic, who swings between linebacker and defensive end, intercepted the pass at the Lowell 17.

Six plays later, Mike Lipton's first career field goal made it 10-0 with 1:27 to go in the opening period. In the final minute of the first quarter, a botched handoff from Kuiper to Peck created a fumble, which was recovered by CP's Nick Cottrell at the Lowell 38. But two incomplete passes, the second one on 4th-and-2 at the Lowell 30 stalled that drive.

After a short punt presented another opportunity, Mascarello slipped and fell on a 4th-and-5 at the Lowell 45-yard-line with 6:11 left in what would be a scoreless second quarter.

There was an abundance of slipping and fumbling and, in defense of the players, it was incredibly humid. The stands at CPHS were wet and slick even though it never rained significantly. Mascarello threw some passes directly into the ground and it appeared he was having trouble gripping the ball. You could lay some of Lowell's turnover troubles off to a slippery ball. But that's an excuse. Some teams scored 40 points Friday night in the same heat and humidity. Football is almost always played in some type of extreme weather. Playoff games are played in snow and rain. You have to be able to get by the conditions and neither side did that Friday.

"Same conditions on both sides," said Kennedy. "It wasn't like it was dry over on the other side. When we took care of the football, we moved it. But we didn't take care of it very much. Consistency is a problem right now. Finishing is a problem. It will get better. It has to."

Crown Point, which had the state's No. 1 scoring defense for 5A teams in 2005, has to be proud of a shutout effort on defense led by senior wrestler Mike Damjanovic (6-0, 220), who grabbed up a Lowell fumble and intercepted a pass, playing a hybrid linebacker and defensive end position, that proved difficult for Lowell's blockers to handle.

"I go back and forth," Damjanovic said of where he plays. "It's up to my coach. I actually do both."

Junior defensive end Nick Hladek (5-8, 185), who was a backup nose guard to now-graduated Nick Conway in 2005 had a fumble recovery and two sacks. Going against Lowell's most experienced lineman, Hladek, a Crown Point varsity baseball catcher, didn't overpower Lowell's Mike Staniewicz (6-7, 264) so much as he slipped by him once in awhile in his first varsity start.

"The crowd gets you fired up," Hladek says. "It's great to see everybody here. It was good to get a shutout. If the offense doesn't score much we still have to do our job. I was up against No. 76 (Staniewicz). He's a tough lineman and he's got a foot on me. I just had to stay low and try to do my job."

Lowell did have some stars, but only on defense. Junior ends Jeff Barker (6-5, 187) and Joe Carlson (6-2, 185) were effective beating blocks and running down plays. The all-junior defensive back trio of Lukas Palmer, TJ Lukasik and Steffan Peck did not get burned by CP's high-tech passing attack as had been expected. CP did score when they were able to isolate Matt Ernest on safety Josh Kuiper in the third quarter for a 19-yard TD pass after Hladek recovered a Max Znika fumble. But four of Mascarello's completions were to running back Tommy Parks and only three were to wide receivers. Both sides were happy with the defensive effort, but it was hard to tell exactly how well either side played defensively because both sides were so poor on offense. But it's far too early to pass judgement positively or negatively on either team. CP beat Lowell 16-6 last season and Lowell won the state championship. This game is almost never indicative of how the season will go for these two schools.

"First games of the year, especially with them (Lowell), go like this," said Pettit. "I've only been involved in one that didn't. In 2002, we won something like 23-0. It was pretty mistake free. But all the other games since I've been coach have gone like this."

OPENING NIGHT NOTES: Crown Point has an all new kicking crew of punter Matt Ernest, kickoff man Nick Barber and place-kicker Michael Lipton. Ernest sliced a 40-yard punt out of bounds at the Lowell 6-yard-line in his only try. Barber dribbled one kickoff, but was good on three others and Lipton kicked a short field goal and two extra points in two tries.

Lipton, Barber and backup kicker Nick Sneiderwine are all varsity soccer players for the so-far unbeaten (3-0) CP soccer varsity. CP has five soccer-football hopefuls on the varsity although Sneiderwine is a senior.

"He was nervous on that first one," Sneiderwine said of Barber. "He's never played football at all until tonight. I think he'll be very good."

"I was really pleased with what they did," said the coach. "Lipton was good. He hit a field goal. Barber hit the ball well after that first one and Ernest punted well. I was very happy with them tonight.

It was high water for the DAC Friday as LaPorte, Chesterton and Valparaiso were all defeated. LaPorte's 39-33 loss to county rival New Prairie is much like Lowell and Crown Point. LaPorte, like CP, has rarely in recent years played overly well against their smaller next door neighbor. New Prairie led 39-7 at the half before LaPorte woke up. 3A Andrean cut 10 players from the squad and still rallied to beat 5A Chesterton 22-16, while Valparaiso got shanghaied 63-14 by Penn.

Lowell's next foe Calumet was crushed 28-0 by Mishawaka Marian while CP's next foe, Hobart coasted by Gary West Side 45-7.

Scott Spicer's 20-yard field goal with 3:41 to play gave Lake Central a come-from-behind 29-28 win over Goshen. The score of this game was reported as 29-18 on the wire services and on local radio. LC actually trailed 28-19 in the fourth quarter. Goshen played without its head coach, who asked to leave the team for reasons that were not explained.

Jon Sertich said, "We were leading 16-0 last year until we gave up a touchdown at the end. This game was just like that. I mentioned that to the defense when they were moving the ball in the fourth quarter. Let's not give up that touchdown.

FROM THE LAND OF THE GIANTS: 3A No. 1 Bishop Chatard rushed for 492 yards and rolled up a 51-0 lead and stopped 5A Broad Ripple 58-7. 5A power Ben Davis will play Penn in week two (8-25-2006) after a 40-14 victory over Perry Meridian. All-state option QB Darren Evans scored five times as 5A No. 1 Warren Central began the quest for an unprecedented fourth consecutive state title with a 61-7 victory over Franklin Central.

In just the second opening night matchup of state champs in the history of the state tournament, 2A No.1 Jimtown rushed for 250 yards and defeated 3A No. 2 Northwood 21-14.

Team	1	2	3	4	F
CROWN POINT (1-0)	10	0	7	0	17
LOWELL (0-1)	0	0	0	0	0