Friday, November 07, 2008
Despite key injuries on both sides of the ball, members of the Hopkins County Central football team have some lofty aspirations to end the regular season with a bang.
When Hancock County (4-5) runs onto Storm Field at 7:30 p.m. today, Central (6-3) plans to disrupt all phases of the Hornets’ game plan and leave everything it has on the gridiron during the team’s Senior Night.
“We’re wanting a shutout, just to get everybody hyped,” junior defensive lineman Josh Adamson said. “It makes us real hungry because we’re trying to come out and get a big win and get hyped and ready for the playoffs coming up.”
Senior running back TroyDale Rorer said his eyes went wide when he learned the Hornet defense has difficulty defending the run.
“You know when a team is vulnerable to the run, as a running back you are going to get excited because you’re like, ‘Man, this is the game you want to rack up on,’ ” Rorer said.
The Storm will be taking the field though without senior quarterback Jake Powell and senior defensive lineman Dustin Grant.
Powell has not played since injuring his ankle on a punt return against Calloway County while Grant injured his knee during practice.
Freshman Luke Crawley started the Storm’s last game and has taken a majority of the team’s snaps since Powell’s absence.
Rorer said although a new play-caller has been handing him the ball in the backfield, he hasn’t noticed a difference.
“Crawley has stepped up,” he said. “He played a good game last week. I have to congratulate him for that.”
Center Cody Summers said it’s been business as usual for him as far as snapping the ball.
“I think he’s as good as Jake and he’s improved a lot during practice,” Summers said. “He likes to be a yard deeper than Jake, but it doesn’t affect me any. It’s the same routine.”
Coach Rick Snodgrass lauded Crawley’s ability to make quick reads under duress.
“We didn’t give up any sacks last week and (Union County) blitzed a lot, played a lot of man coverage, but he got the ball out of his hand quick,” Snodgrass said. “That’s one good thing that he does, he gets through his progressions pretty quickly and he gets the ball out to our playmakers pretty quickly.”
On the defensive side, junior Shelby Cummings will make his first start, filling in for Grant.
“He played quite a bit last week and we really liked what we saw on film when we went back and looked at the effort he gave us,” Snodgrass said.
Cummings said he’s quite comfortable being in the starting rotation.
“Some people would have pressure on them, but I don’t feel any pressure,” he said. “I just feel good about going out and hitting somebody.”
The junior defender will have to be ready if he and the Storm wish to shut down Hancock County’s offense, which uses 17 different formations.
“They run so many formations we don’t want to get caught not lined up right,” Snodgrass said. “With some younger guys in there, that’s always an issue, so we’re going to play a little more base this week and not so many fronts as we usually do.”
Snodgrass and Adamson agreed the Hornets prefer to run the ball and Hancock County amassed 142 yards in a 33-0 loss to Daviess County last week.
“They like to hit people on the toss-sweep and get to the edge,” Adamson said. “We’ve got some real good defensive lineman that can contain them, and I think we should be able to shut them down.”
Offensively, Central will look to pound the ball against an inexperienced line, Snodgrass said.
“They’ve got some kids with some good size, but they don’t have a lot of speed to go with it,” he said. “They start a couple sophomores up there, so they’re kind of young on the offensive and defensive line.”
Summers said he feels the Storm coaching staff has done more than enough to prepare the Central lineman for what they will face.
“They’re going to be running a 4-2 with blitzing linebackers,” he said. “We’ve been practicing all week, we should be able to pick it up. It should be a walk in the park.”
If every thing goes right up front, Rorer should be in line for another big evening, but for the moment all the running back is concerned about is getting a win on Senior Night.
“We’re trying to go a couple more weeks, so it hasn’t registered yet,” he said of playing his final game at home. “I don’t know if it’s going to be emotional or not. I haven’t given it too much thought, but I just want to make it a good game, try to play good. It will be the last time fans will see our senior class.”
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