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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
North White (0-1) at Caston (0-1), 7 p.m.
North White allowed 223 passing yards in last week’s 14-8 loss to Taylor. Caston’s Gavin Mollenkopf had 80 yards passing against Carroll (Flora) in a 55-6 loss last week. Logan Mollenkopf had three catches for 68 yards.
These teams split two meetings last year. North White won 14-6 in their regular season meeting, but Caston avenged that with a 34-28 win in the sectional quarterfinals. North White came into that meeting with a 9-0 record.
North White averaged 21 points per game in two games against Caston last year. They averaged 47 points per game in their other eight games.
Quarterback Eli Quasebarth accounted for 333 of North White’s 336 yards of offense in last year’s sectional game, but he has graduated.
Pioneer (1-0) at Knox (0-1), 7:30 p.m.
Led by Micah Rans and Noah VanMeter, Pioneer had 261 yards rushing in a 42-14 win over Lewis Cass last week. Meanwhile, Knox allowed 275 yards rushing and four touchdowns to North Judson’s Kole Wilcox in a 42-21 loss in their opener.
Pioneer’s Eli Guffey had 12 tackles, including four for loss, and two forced fumbles against Lewis Cass. He will try to slow down the rushing attack led by junior quarterback Myles McLaughlin, who already is the school’s all-time leading rusher, and tailback Jake Conroy.
This will be the 10th straight year that Pioneer and Knox have met, though this is their first nonconference meeting during that time. Pioneer won seven straight years from 2015-21, but Knox has won the last two years by a combined score of 103-26.
Pioneer is No. 13 in this week’s Class 1A media poll. Knox is No. 7 in Class 3A, and all six teams ranked ahead of them are in the south.
West Central (0-1) at Culver (1-0), 7 p.m.
Culver beat Attica 42-0 last week in Kevin Danti’s first game as defensive coordinator. Theron Carrington wrecked the Attica offensive line for four sacks from his defensive end spot.
“I think everybody played collectively as a unit doing their job,” Culver coach Austin Foust said of his defense. “Obviously, we had our front four with Theron Carrington, Logan Caudill, Skyler Geer and Izaya Vela and Daniel Laba rotating in there too as well that put a lot of pressure on the quarterback, and our secondary did a really good job of staying with the receivers. We knew the quarterback could run around, so we were going to have to contain him and not come off the wide receivers as well, and we did a really good job with that, and obviously that was a big key to the shutout. And tackling too. We put a lot of emphasis on tackling, and I thought our kids definitely responded.”
Culver has not started a season 2-0 since 2017.
Culver lost to West Central 52-18 last year, which ended Culver’s nine-game winning streak against the Trojans.
West Central junior Drea Villarreal had more yards rushing last week (177) in a 24-16 loss to Winamac than he had all of last season (166). Foust said Villarreal is an impact player as both a fullback and as a linebacker on defense.
“He’s a really good player on both sides of the ball,” Foust said. “He was the bulk of their offense and broke a 75-yard run and showed really good speed and defensively was their leading tackler. So he’s a guy that on both sides of the ball we’ve got to account for. We’ve got to be able to stop him. Obviously, their first option they want to do is get the ball to the fullback. We’ve got to make sure we play disciplined football, come down on him and hopefully take him away. And then defensively, we’ve got to get hats on him. We’ve got to block him and make his life as hard as possible, so he’s not just coming down unblocked. Because if he does come down unblocked, he’s going to make the tackle.”
Winamac (1-0) at Frontier (1-0), 7 p.m.
Winamac accumulated 240 yards of offense in a 24-16 win over West Central last week – 166 yards rushing and 74 passing.
Frontier quarterback Reid Duncan is a dual threat: He passed for 148 yards and ran for another 110 in a 36-26 win over Clinton Prairie last week. Frontier had lost its 11 previous meetings to Clinton Prairie prior to last week, including a 48-18 loss last year.
This is the teams’ first meeting since a 67-0 Winamac win in 2014. Winamac left the Midwest Conference for the Hoosier North the following year.
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