Week 9-  Football Game of the Week Preview

2A No. 2 Andrean (8-0) at Lowell (5-3)

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
10-14-2011
 
 

The Inferno, Lowell's football stadium, was renovated in 2009 and seats approximately 3,500 fans. (Photo by Mark Smith)

When:  7:00 p.m., Friday, October 14, 2011
 

Where:  Lowell High School  - 2051 E. Commercial AVE (Route 2), Lowell, Indiana. (3-miles West of I-65 on State Route 2.

Radio-TV:  WTMK (88.5) FM. WKIF (92.7 FM); Also listen to WLPR (89.1) for updates on all local games all night. Highlights: Lakeshore TV football recap show, 10:30 p.m. Comcast Cable Ch. 17.

Tickets:  $6

Weather: Colder. Much better for players. Somebody tell happy talk weather men that 75 and sunny is BASEBALL weather. Football needs to be played in 55-60 degree temperatures in the wind. Friday's projected high: 65 degrees. That means upper 50s by game time. It will rain this week so the field will be muddy at Lowell. This is run-the-football weather. Fans need to bring coats and be prepared in case of rain. But that's part of the 'fun'.

Parking: I expect a large crowd of Andrean fans to show up in Lowell, but I've been wrong about the 59ers before. My history with Andrean is that they show up for home games and playoff games. This is neither. I keep hearing how hard it is for fans to go from the north end of the county down to Lowell for a football game. But the Niners are 8-0. Their fans SHOULD BE coming to Lowell Friday. Get ready to walk from the front of the school (about 200 yards). Bring shoes you can lose because you might be parking on the practice field and it could be a little soggy.

Northwest Crossroads STANDINGS (8 weeks)
NCC overall
1. ANDREAN 5-0, 8-0
2. LOWELL 5-1, 5-3
3. Griffith 4-2, 5-3
4. Munster 4-2, 4-4
5. Kankakee Valley 2-4, 2-6
6. Highland 1-4, 2-6
7. Hobart 0-6, 1-7

WHAT'S AT STAKE: This is the league championship game. A Lowell win creates a two-way tie for the title, while an Andrean win gives the 59ers an undefeated league championship. But with the draw last Sunday, things have changed.

Anyone who says this is a big game now isn't really being honest with you. Lowell has to be preparing in some ways for Mishawaka, an intimidating 4A Sectional 10 quarterfinal opponent on Oct. 21. Andrean must be beginning prep for the Oct. 21 Class 2A Sectional 25 game with undefeated Wheeler (8-0), a team that's not similar to Lowell in style of offense.

This game does not mean as much as it did before Lowell lost last week to Munster and drew Mishawaka in the playoffs.

HISTORY: Andrean High School is the 52-year-old Merrillville Catholic high school named after the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gary, Andrew Grutka. There has always been confusion about whether the sports teams there are called the 59ers because of the address of the school: 5959 Broadway... Or if, because the school opened in 1959, are they named after the 49ers, the classic gold rush adventurers of the mid-1800s, for whom the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers were named in the late 1940s. Different people tell you different stories.

Andrean, which is listed as having just 610 students, seems to be at somewhat of a crossroads with the advent of charter schools, which can accept any student and have the state pay for it. The economy has hurt Andrean's enrollment (they are now smaller than Hanover Central) and sister school Bishop Noll (440 students) is now down to Class 1A. Unless there's a change in the laws that allow public tax money to be poured into outlaw charter schools with little public supervision, Catholic school enrollment will decline.

Andrean and Bishop Noll are the traditional options for Catholic-based education in Northwest Indiana and, even though both have declined in enrollment in the last two decades, they have retained a level of excellence in athletics. Andrean is the only Northwest Indiana school to have win state titles in baseball, football and softball. They fell one win short in basketball in 1990 when Andrean lost to another private school, Indianapolis Brebeuf. While area public schools do get upset with Andrean for winning with players from their towns, they carry the burden of great expectations.
 

With the football program dropping to Class 2A in the five class playoff system, anything less than a state finals berth for this year's team will be disappointing. In truth, Andrean is the only area school where its sports teams can't have a good year unless they get to the state championship game. That's true of all their team sports and it should be.

So here's the football program which has lost at the 3A regional level for three years in a row. Now, they drop to Class 2A, only to find two-time defending state champ Bishop Luers, an Andrean-clone, in their way. Anyone who has watched Luers in the state finals in the last two seasons knows that the 59ers need to be much better than they are to beat Luers.

Andrean has a lot of work to do.

Andrean 59ers (8-0) at Lowell Red Devils (5-3)

SAGARIN RATINGS: ANDREAN by 16.

The Niners have defeated a Merrillville team, which leads the DAC. Andrean has also topped Munster, which defeated Lowell last week. This spread is too high because the game's at Lowell and Lowell and Andrean topped Griffith by the same margin. There's nobody that's not 5A that's going to win at Lowell by two touchdowns. But the 59ers are certainly a 7-10 point favorite in any estimation.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN: Lowell committed four turnovers and lost at Munster last week. Andrean trailed at the half before rallying to top Griffith. Both teams will play cautiously here. No one has run on Andrean all season, but they get a severe test here from a Lowell team that won't get fancy after four turnovers last week at Munster.

This game will see a scoreless first quarter and The Niners will open the scoring on a short field goal by Danny Wirtz and it will be 3-0 at halftime. Lowell will take a 7-3 third quarter lead on a TD run by Clark Mikesell, but the Niners will drive late and score on two-time 1,000-yard rusher Mason Zurek's TD run in the final period.

The Devils could win with a turnover-free game, but they have not had one as of yet. Lowell's lack of a kicker will show up here because the 59ers can get tough near the goal line. Andrean completes an undefeated regular season in a defensive struggle.