Lowell loses Clemens to 3rd Qtr injury, drops Regional 28-21 to Wawasee

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

11-13-2004

Regional 4A Championship - Friday, Nov. 12, 2004,  35 degrees, dry in Lowell

1st Q: WAWASEE (7-0) Kory Lantz, 6-yard run (18th TD) . 71-yard drive, 10 plays. Ben Champoux kick. 5:16 left.

2nd Q: WAWASEE (13-0) Ryan Kauchak (7^th TD catch), 15-yard pass from Kory Lantz (13^th TD pass). 81-yard drive, 8 plays. Kick wide. 10:28 left.

LOWELL (13-7) Chris Lampa, 5-yard pass (2^nd TD catch) from Scott Schulz (7th TD pass). 54-yard drive, 7 plays. Matt Seidel kick. 6:45 left.

WAWASEE (21-7) Ben Champoux (6^th TD catch), 55-yard pass from Lantz (14^th TD pass). 59-yard drive, 3 plays. Jordan Swain, 2-point run. 5:04 left.

LOWELL (21-14) Scott Schulz, 5-yard run (4^th TD). 67-yard drive, 11 plays. Seidel kick. 0:46 left.

3rd Q: LOWELL (21-21) Jeff Clemens, 16-yard pass (23^rd TD, 5^th TD catch) from Scott Schulz (7^th TD pass). 59-yard drive, 7 plays. Seidel kick. 7:21 left.

WAWASEE (28-21) Ben Champoux, 30-yard pass from Kory Lantz. 65-yard drive, 10 plays. Champoux kick. 3:36 left.

4th Q:  No Scoring.

LOWELL (11-12-2004) “It seems like we got everybody's 'A' game,” said Lowell coach Kirk Kennedy after his team's 28-21 loss to 10^th-ranked Wawasee Friday night. “And we never came with our 'A' game.”

That was a cold assessment on a cold night. The cliché is that 'defense wins' but Wawasee, the Kosciusko County offensive power from the bigger, stronger Northern Lakes Conference, answered every Lowell challenge with more offense.

The Warriors (12-1), who had to drive 100 miles after school to play on Lowell's home field, made no turnovers and never trailed, winning the 4A regional title for the first time in 19 years.

“We're one year ahead of the 20-year plan,” joked Wawasee coach Joe Rietveld. “There are three communities, North Webster, Milford and Syracuse and I would guess it's huge for all of them. It's great for all our past players who struggled with us when I first got the job in 1998. My hat goes off to them. A lot of them are here tonight.

For the Devils (9-4), a season with eight wins by 10 points or more, ended with a fourth loss by seven points or less. In this year, like in this game, they had hoped for better.

There was no turning point. Lowell never got control. Wawasee scored on their first possession, converting two short 4^th-and-1 running plays, and the Devils were pushed into the catchup mode they would work in all night.

Never having played Wawasee, Lowell had problems with senior QB Kory Lantz (6-2, 180), a shifty ball-handler who fooled them early with fakes and quick runs. The Warriors spread out three and four ends and flankers on most plays, but they ran the ball 75% of the time, matching their quarterback, halfback and five offensive linemen against a defense which could only have seven or eight players in between the hash marks due to all the wide receivers.

The visitors, dressed in green and gold, drove 71 yards in 10 plays to take a 7-0 lead and then went 86 yards in seven plays to make it 14-0 with 10:28 left in the first half. Lantz, a taller, slightly slower version of Andrean star Tommy Finn (who threw for 410 yards against Lowell in September), ran five yards for the first TD and passed 14 yards to tight end Ryan Kauchak for the second. Kauchak broke free down the middle of the field when Lowell tried to blitz Lantz.

Meanwhile, the Devils started slowly as Wawasee's average sized but quick defenders concentrated on Lowell's 216-pound senior tailback Toby Goetz.

“We knew where he was at all times,” said Rietveld of Goetz, who finished his career just short of 2,000 yards. “We had an extra guy follow him because he's a heckuva player. We didn't have an answer for Clemens. He ran all over us in the first half. We made an adjustment at halftime to have our backside guys key on him. Because they were running a lot of misdirection stuff on us.”

The Red Devils began to rally when Scott Schulz ran the third Wawasee kickoff back 40 yards to the Lowell 46, cheering the Lowell portion of the crowd of about 3,000. One play later, Clemens cut back on a sweep and ran 29 yards to the Wawasee 17-yard line. On a 3^rd-and-goal from the five yard line, Schulz rolled out to his right and fired a quick pass to junior Chris Lampa for Lowell's first TD with 6:45 left in the half.

But Wawasee retaliated immediately. On a 3^rd-and-6 from the Wawasee 45, the warriors lined up four wide receivers and Lantz, operating out of a shut gun formation, avoided Lowell's rush and fired the ball down the center of the field to ace receiver Ben Champoux, who ran away from the defense to make it 21-7.

“They took a free safety to cover up one of our wide receivers,” explained Rietveld. “So we knew if we got behind them, there was no one back there. And they didn't have No. 2 (Jeff Clemens) back there and he's an outstanding player.”

That strategy was no secret formula. Lowell's base defense is a 4-4-3, a run-stopping defense that requires you to have strong cornerbacks. The Devils had about a dozen running back/linebackers on the roster this season but very few cornerbacks. That's part of the reason why Andrean (35) and Wawasee (28) were the only teams to score four TDs against Lowell.

Lowell cut the lead to 21-14 before halftime after Clemens broke loose for a 34-yard run to the Wawasee 30-yard line. The multi position Lowell junior, who played fullback, flanker, punter, punt returner and free safety on this night, broke a 30-yard TD run that was called back due to a penalty. Three plays later, Schulz made a spinning five-yard run to the end zone to cut the halftime lead to seven points.

Lowell sacked Lantz on the first two plays of the second half and the mood changed. The Devils got a short punt and drove 5 plays to tie the game. Schulz threw a roll out 16-yard pass to wide receiver Clemens to make it 21-21 with 7:21 left in the third quarter.

But Clemens' kickoff went out of bounds and the Warriors drove 65 yards to take the lead. Lantz was 3-of-3 on the drive including a 30-yard wide side toss to the flag (the point where the goal line meets the sideline) hitting Champoux over Scott Gray, a true linebacker who has been filling in at corner back most of the season. The Warriors scored four TDs in their first five possessions.

“We weren't consistent defensively,” said Kennedy who, like his boys, took the loss hard. “The trick with them is to get up to game speed against their offense. But after the first series, that should have been taken care of. We can't make as many mistakes as we made tonight and expect to win. We did compete and we did play hard. But we had mental breakdowns and you can't do that against a team like them. We're fighting (offensively) for everything we can get and we gave them easy scores.”

Of the second and third TD passes, Kennedy said simply, “We were in 'man' coverage (1 on 1) and we just blew the coverage. Our tackling wasn't good in the first half. I thought it was a lot better in the second half. But when you come out on a night like this, you need to be on your 'A' game. We just flat out gave them two touchdowns.”

The Devils' chances to win were crippled right after Wawasee's fourth TD when Clemens came to the sideline with a knee problem. After examining the knee briefly, Lowell trainer Bobby Wong sent the junior star to the school for a walking cast. Clemens returned to the field in the middle of the fourth quarter but only to watch from the sidelines.

Lowell got only two first downs after Clemens left the game. The Devils tried to get away from Goetz, who was met by three tacklers on many plays. But neither Schulz nor Gray, who replaced Clemens in the backfield, could break away.

“We just couldn't stabilize it,” Clemens said later. “I couldn't put any weight on it. Jordan Swain ran a little trap play out of the shotgun. Randy (Lukasik) made the tackle and Ryan King flipped around and knocked on my knee. I felt it pop and I knew something was wrong. I could hear the people in the crowd telling me to 'shake it off' but I couldn't put any weight on it. I didn't tear my ACL. My MCL just got stretched. I'll be in a cast 10 days and I'll be fine.

“It was a fluke play. This was the first serious injury. I thought it would be fine. But it wasn't okay. I thought they'd key on me because of what I did (5 TDs) last week but they didn't. They keyed on Toby. I was willing to take the ball whenever I can. We played a helluva game. But we're going to come back next year and get another sectional championship, ”

There is a tendency to blame the loss on Clemens injury but, in truth, Swain, the state's third leading rusher, was hurt on the final play of Wawasee's 28-7 sectional championship game win over Plymouth seven days earlier and was not a major factor at Lowell. With the Devils defense putting the evil eye on him, Swain, a hard-running low-rider, gained just 44 yards on only 10 carries. The 205-pound four year starter came into the night with 2,245 yards on 250 carries, a 9-yard average.

“I don't think everybody knew how hurt he was,” said Rietveld of his senior halfback. “He just needed another week to heal. If this had been a regular season game, he might not have played.”

On Lowell's final possession, the Devils reached the Wawasee 43-yard line but a big rush by lineman Creighton Kiger (5-11, 235) forced a Schulz incomplete pass on 4^th-and-14 with 2:41 left.

“That's a great team over there,” said Rietveld as his boys celebrated on the cold, hard Lowell field. “They are a very, very good football team. They are as physical as any we've played. My hat's off to them. Having one of their better players get hurt definitely helped us.”

The game was reminiscent of not only the 35-28 loss at Andrean in September but the 20-13 regional loss to East Noble in November of 2003. On that night, like this one, Lowell had rallied to tie the game in the second half.

“We did buckle down in the second half,” said Kennedy. “The injury to Clemens was big. We were unable to get over that and get the final big play to tie it up again. We fought hard the whole game. We just fell short.”

DEVIL NOTES: This was a rare high school game in the respect that neither side lost a fumble or an interception on a very cold night.

“They (Wawasee) were turnover-prone all year,” said Lowell coach Kennedy. “And they made none tonight. You can't come into a game hoping the other teams has an off night. But we got Andrean's best game and we got their best game. We tend to bring out the best in our opponents. But where's our best game? I don't think we really played a 'best' game all year.”

Wawasee coach Joe Rietveld talked about his team's balance with an aside to Lowell's senior star. “We do a lot of different things offensively by design,” he said. “Maybe if we had Goetz we would not do that. We don't have a guy six foot tall and 215 pounds who can run over three people. We have to keep the defense off balance.”   Goetz ended his career with 1,954 yards on 276 carries, the second best totals in Lowell school history behind Michael Pickett, who gained 2,256 yards on 339 carries in 1994.

Clemens said that had Lowell rallied to win, he would not have been able to play in the semistate or state finals. As he watched his senior teammates suffer with their final loss, the Lowell teen wanted another chance.

“I wish we had advanced but there was no way I would have been able to play.”

“I know they might put me at halfback next year and I'm more than comfortable with it,” he said. “I've been in championship situations for two years now. Now I've got to step it up for next year. I'm ready for it.”

Wawasee brought about 1,000 fans from the Kosciusko County area, midway between South Bend and Fort Wayne. The Warriors' marching band also made the trip and played before the game, a rarity for a high school. Wawasee was especially well-behaved. There was one late hit called on the field and there was the usual football field chatter. But Warrior players could be seen helping Lowell boys to their feet after tackles and, as Lowell was awarded the game ball as the second place team, the Warrior players were instructed by their coaches to stand and applaud and almost all of them did.

While some Wawasee fans frolicked in the center of the field, the Warrior players kept the celebrating to a minimum on the field even though they were clearly overjoyed with the win.

Wawasee advanced to play Logansport, an upset winner 20-11 at undefeated Muncie Central on Friday night. Two-time defending state champion and clear cut 4A favorite Roncalli (11-2), rallied to win at undefeated Mooresville 20-16 Friday to stay alive for a third consecutive title.

In 3A Andrean rolled over Hamilton Heights 48-23 behind 270 yards passing from senior QB Tommy Finn. The 59ers (11-2) travel to New Prairie (12-1), a 28-17 winner over Norwell. Three-time defending 3A state champ Bishop Chatard (11-2) rolled to a fourth consecutive regional title with a 38-7 runaway at New Palestine.

No Indiana school has ever won four consecutive state football championships.

LOWELL – 251 yards (211 rushing); Wawasee – 301 yards (135 rushing)

LOWELL -- 10, Wawasee -- 15

LOWELL -- 0; Wawasee -- 0

Scott Schulz (L) 3-7, 40 yards, TD

Kory Lantz (W) 10-14, 166, 3 TDs

Jeff Clemens (L) 2-35 yards, TD; Chris Lampa (L) 1-5 yards, TD

Andrew Mock (W) 3-62, TD; Ryan Kauchak (W) 1-14 yards, TD; Ben Champoux (W) 3-71 yards, TD; Ryan Christner (W) 2-12 yards; Jordan Swain (W) 1-7 yards

WAWASEE (31-135 yards, TD) Jordan Swain (W) 10-44 (season: 260-2,900 yards yards); Rob McKibben (W) 1-37; Kory Lantz (W) 20-54, TD

LOWELL (39-211 yards, TD) Jeff Clemens (L) 10-139 yards (Season: 61-751 yards, 11 TDs); Toby Goetz (L) 19-57 yards (Season: 276-1,954 yards, 27 TDs); Scott Schulz (L) 5-1 yard, TD; Scott Gray (L) 5-14 yards (Season: 50-381 yards, 5 TDs).