Lowell shuts out Hobart 35-0 at new Brickyard, Grubbe breaks Devils' career rushing record

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith

9-27-2009

Friday, Sep. 25, 2009,  61 degrees, light rain -- Northwest Crossroads Conference at The Brickyard, HOBART, IN

1st Qtr:  LOWELL (7-0) Brandon Grubbe, 8-yard run.  11-play, 61-yard drive.  Boge Pejoski kick.  4:23 left.
2nd Qtr:   LOWELL (14-0) Brandon Grubbe, 17-yard run. 7-PLAY, 58 yard drive.  Pejoski kick.  11:34 left.
LOWELL (21-0) Brandon Grubbe, 63-yard run.  2-play, 68-yard drive.  Pejoski kick.  6:26 left.
3rd Qtr:  LOWELL (28-0)  Cole Midgett, 51-yard pass from Ray Skamay.  Pejoski kick.  7:04 left.
LOWELL (35-0) Brandon Grubbe, 1-yard run.  3 yards, 3 plays after 92-yard fumble return by Cole Midgett.  Pejoski kick.  2:24 left.
4th Qtr:  No scoring.

RUSHING:
LOWELL (38 carries, 238 yards, 4 TDs):  Ray Skamay (QB) 6-25 yards; Nate Cleveland (FB) 3-4 yards;
Brandon Grubbe (HB) 26 carries, 200 yards, 4 TDs; Nick Hamilton (HB) 3-9 yards.

HOBART (34 carries, 62 yards):  Kendall Gunn (FB) 10-40 yards; Ian Drobac (HB) 14-28 yards; Sam Kosich (QB) 7 (minus-5 yards);
Kory Kowal (HB) 2-1 yards; Russell Jensen (HB) 1 (minus-2 yards) fumble.

PASSING:
Sam Kosich (QB) 2-for-7, 55 yards;
Ray Skamay (QB) 3-for-5, 99 yards, TD.

RECEIVING:
HOBART:  Kendall Gunn (FB) 1-34 yards; Kyle Olsen (HB) 1-25 yards;
LOWELL:  Nate Cleveland (FB) 1-15 yards; Cole Midgett (WR) 2-84 yards, TD.

TOTAL YARDS:
HOBART 117 yards (7 - 1st downs);
LOWELL 337 yards (11 - 1st downs).

TURNOVERS:
HOBART (2) 2 fumbles;  LOWELL (2) 2 fumbles.

HOBART (9-25-2009) It wasn't much of a game.  Hobart was no match for Lowell on a rainy night at the large, new brightly lit 'Brickyard' stadium.  So much of Lowell's 35-0 win Friday was devoted to senior halfback Brandon Grubbe.  Not because he scored four touchdowns on 26 carries on the new Hobart artificial turf.  But because his unofficial 200 yards pushed the Lowell senior's three-year total above the all-time career rushing total of 1994 all-stater Michael Pickett (4,198 yards) and made Grubbe (4,302 yards) Lowell's all-time rushing leader.

Pickett, who has been Hobart's offensive coordinator for the last few years and Grubbe, who has started for Lowell since midway through his sophomore season, both seemed a little shy about all the attention as they posed for photographers in the middle of the field after the game.

"I was aware of it," Brandon said, "because my parents kept reminding me of it."

"We've had a lot of good running backs over the years," said Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy.  "It was just a matter of time before someone came along to break that record and tonight, someone did."

"I didn't know how many yards he needed," said Pickett, who was coached by Kirk Kennedy, Brad Stewart, Jim Carlson and many of the same coaches Lowell has today.  "I knew he'd get it eventually."

Pickett led the Lowell offense to the semistate in 1994.

"I just tried to do the best I could and not focus on myself, he said.  "At Lowell, there's always got to be guys who sacrifice and not get their name in the paper.  What I did was a result of them and that they had confidence in me.  And it's the same with anyone who played that position (tailback at Lowell).  You know you're the guy and you buy into that.  What makes it work is that the other guys buy into that from when they're in eighth grade and freshmen.  I don't remember anybody complaining about me getting the ball.  Nobody yelled from the stands.  Maybe it happened, but I didn't hear it.  At Lowell, that's the nature of it.  There's going to be one guy who gets the ball 30 times a game.  That guy tries to be the best he can be and everybody else tries their best to help him out.  That's the way it is.  That's the program.  And it works."

"I'm really happy for him," said Lowell QB Ray Skamay.  "Ever since Pop Warner, you can tell he was going to do great things.  He had that competitive nature.  He's really worked for this all his life.  It paid off.  I'm really happy for him.  Once it sinks in he'll be okay with it.  When he scored that third touchdown, I ran down there to congratulate him and he didn't say anything.  He just wanted to get to the sidelines."

The game, played in a constant light rain shower, was not a contest after Lowell scored for the third time midway through the second quarter.  Grubbe (6-1, 194) scored all three first half touchdowns, but the third one, a 63-yard run through the center of the Hobart defense upped the lead to 21-0 with 6:26 still to go before halftime and made it clear that the rest of the game would be played for pride under the unusually bright Hobart 'Brickyard' artificial lights.

Skamay completed a well-thrown 49-yard TD pass to Cole Midgett for the score to make it 28-0 with 7:04 left in the third quarter.  Hobart, which had as many as 17 varsity players injured and unavailable (including top running back Richard Oglesby), had two chances to score after it was 28-0.

Sophomore QB Sam Kosich completed a 34-yard third quarter pass to Kendall Gunn, but Gunn fumbled inside the Lowell 10-yard-line and Midgett ran the ball back 92 yards, setting up the Devils fifth TD.

Midgett fumbled a punt (it bounced sharply and hit him in the leg) at the Red Devil 10-yard line with 11:48 to go in the game, but Hobart's Russell Jensen fumbled on 1st-and-goal from the 3-yard line with Lowell's Jake Payton getting the ball back for the visitors.

There is a feeling that Lowell (6-0) may be getting lulled into a false sense of security by weak foes the last two weeks.  Highland (1-5) and Hobart (1-5) have not put up anywhere near the level of competition that Concord (6-0) and Plymouth (6-0) will bring in 4A Sectional 10 next month.  The Devils may have faced their last losing foe for this season as Hammond (4-2), Munster (4-2) and Andean (4-2) finish the regular season schedule.  Even with back-to-back shutouts, it's clear when you watch Lowell that they are not playing anywhere near a peak efficiency level.

"This was the opposite of last week," said Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy.  "Last week we kinda 'ho-hummed' through the first half and this week we let down a little in the second half.  It was a sign of lack of focus."

"It wasn't too bad, but again, just not consistent.  We had a big lead early.  That probably affected our focus.  We're going to try not to focus on our potential and come as close to that as we can."

DEVIL NOTES:  Hobart assistant coach Michael Pickett shies away from talking about his days as a running back/linebacker at Lowell in the early 1990s.

"In my time since I've been out of school," he said Friday, "I almost feel comfortable being away from that.  It makes you feel good, but I don't want to be the guy who's 35 years old and still talking about what he did in high school.  I wouldn't say it's embarrassing, but it was never about setting records and people talking about me.  To me, it was about coach (Kennedy), the guys who played and how many games we won."

But Pickett, who has watched Lowell as a foe the last six years, isn't surprised about what the school's football program (70-14 the last seven years) has become.

"Absolutely not," he said Friday after the game.  "When you base your program on work ethic and doing the right things and playing hard.  That's the end result of that.  We had hard nosed teams with good kids.  They made mistakes.  They (Lowell) could talk all kinds of crap to us (Hobart).  We've beaten them what?  Two times in seven years?  But they don't do that.  If you saw him (Grubbe) at the mall, he'd say 'Yes sir, No sir.'  That's the way they're taught."

Lowell's Ray Skamay wasn't the varsity quarterback the last two years, but he's been in the same backfield with fellow senior Brandon Grubbe before.

"My first year of Pop Warner football was fifth grade, said Skamay, who was a wide receiver last season.  "I tried to get him to come out then and he said he'd come out for football the next year.  We've been playing together ever since then."

Everyone seemed to like Hobart's new stadium.  The revelation is the visitors grandstand.  Usually at high school games, the visitors' stands are cramped, splinter riddled benches made out of leftover boards and metal, sitting in a weed field with a porta-potty out back.  At the new Brickyard, the visitors' stands seat about 1,200 with restroom facilities and a visitors' locker room underneath.

The visiting team can sit indoors at halftime just a few feet away from the soft, plush artificial turf playing field.  Before the game, the message board at the south end of the field plays a montage' of Hobart highlights from past years.  Visibly, the stadium resembles a larger version of the complex that Lowell played at when they visited Concord in the post season in 2006 and 2008.  It's hard to believe that this 84 million dollar campus on west 10th street in Hobart was built for just 1200 to 1400 students, the listed capacity.  It appears to be much larger than that.

"The history of our program is something," said Skamay. "The first team I saw was that 1999 team with (QB) Joe O'Connell.  He's been at practice with us the last three weeks and he's helped me out a lot.  My dad's friends son (Ryan Seydel) played on that team.  He walked on at IU later.  So me and my dad, we'd always go to the games.  I remember being at the Highland playoff game that year.  All the good games.  That was the first Lowell team I remember."

Hobart freshman running back Ian Drobac (6-1, 185) is obviously going to be a quality player if he can stay healthy.  He is the brother of Marc Drobac (2005) who was an all-area player for Hobart in the early part of the decade and the son of Marc Drobac Sr. (1981) who was a Hobart football star in the late 1970s and early 1980s.