Val T.
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read

Week 4 football preview: Manchester defense to try to slow down Zebras

No. 7 Valley travels to No. 14 Knox in first INSC game; Caston seeks to stop Rans, Pioneer ground game; Culver, Winamac seeking to bounce back

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Rochester (2-1, 2-0 Three Rivers Conference) at Manchester (1-2, 1-1), 7 p.m.

There might be an injured quarterback going into the Rochester-Manchester game Friday. Fortunately for Zebra fans, it’s not the one of which they might be thinking.

While Carson Paulik appeared to be hobbled with an ankle injury and had to miss a few plays in the second half as his ankle was retaped in a 49-12 win over Whitko last week, Rochester coach Ron Shaffer said he participated in practice this week and should be ready to play against the Squires.

Rather, the injured quarterback might be Manchester’s Logan Eastgate. Though Manchester beat Wabash 42-26 last week, Eastgate threw only one pass and had only four rushing attempts. In the first two games of the season against Northwestern and Bluffton, Eastgate had 17 passing attempts and 24 rushing attempts.

Eli Metzger had 185 yards receiving against Bluffton but was a non-factor against Wabash. His ability to flourish might depend on Eastgate’s health.

Eastgate did not finish the Wabash game under center, according to Shaffer.

“Their quarterback got injured in the game against Wabash,” Shaffer said. “It was either late in the second quarter or early in the third. So they brought in a backup quarterback. I’m just guessing that limited them a little bit. Probably the playbook shrunk a little bit, but we have seen on film that Metzger is a very good receiver and a dangerous guy with the ball in his hand.”

The Manchester offense compiled 280 rushing yards on 50 carries last week. No running back had 100 yards, but three different backs – Reiss Gaerte, Mason Rooney and Dallas Martin – had between 60 and 80 yards rushing.

Brian Enyeart is Manchester’s third coach in three years, and he has installed a flexbone offense which Shaffer compares to what Air Force runs at the NCAA Division I level. Rooney, a senior fullback, is the focal point in their midline attack.

“There re two split ends and two halfbacks in the slot,” Shaffer explained. “And they’re running midline and inside veer and a few counters. They’re running rocket sweep. They’re going to try to option you as much as they can, so they’re reading defensive linemen for the fullback and outside backers for the pitch, so you can see the possibility of three different guys running the ball on one play. … If you can contain or control that fullback and play assignment football, you can make things difficult for them from an offensive standpoint.”

Meanwhile, Manchester allowed 350 yards to Wabash after the Apaches had scored only six points in their first two games combined. Rochester had 363 yards rushing on 6.5 yards per carry against Whitko.

Rochester had 240 yards rushing on 7.5 yards per carry in a 50-0 win at Barnhart Field last year. Shaffer said Manchester’s linebackers are hard hitters and “can get after it.”

“Manchester’s going to run a 4-4 defense – four down (linemen), three backers, three-deep look,” Shaffer said. “Wabash was able to throw the ball on them and were able to run the ball on them – do a little bit of both. They had a kickoff return on them. That helped put a score on the board for Wabash. Wabash just didn’t finish all their drives. … They don’t give up. They’re tough. They’re huge, very large players upfront. … Manchester’s got really good backers: Metzger plays on the inside, Rooney plays on the inside, and then you’ve got Gaerte on the outside.”

The teams have split their last eight meetings dating back to 2014. Rochester is 2-2 at Manchester since the Squires built their own football stadium on school grounds in 2012.

Shaffer said Camden Susaraba will be “in the mix” at both tight end and defensive tackle. He missed the first three games due to injury.

Tippecanoe Valley (3-0, 0-0 Indiana Northern State Conference) at Knox (1-2, 0-0), 7:30 p.m. Eastern

The historic first night of conference games in the INSC features two teams coming off undefeated regular seasons last year.

Both teams also had eventual state champion Indianapolis Chatard curtail their seasons last year – Valley in the sectional quarterfinals, Knox in the semistate.

Valley attempted only one pass – it fell incomplete – but still knocked off Hammond Morton, a Class 5A opponent, 35-23 last week.

Wes Parker had a team-high 118 yards rushing, and Valley compiled 410 yards rushing as a team.

Moriarty was asked if offensive coordinator Carl Weaver is calling a different game since Hunter Stage replaced the injured Jameson Phillips at quarterback.

“I would say that he’s calling about the same game,” Moriarty said. “They both have similar styles in general. They both are runners, and they’re good at passing. I think the way we’re calling the game is kind of dictated on how the game is going, whether we need to run the ball more or what the defense is giving us.”

Moriarty was asked if conditioning has been a key to the team’s success as Valley has been able to grind out drives on the ground in tight games against Rochester and Hammond Morton the last two weeks.

“I think it is,” Moriarty said. “That was one of our points of emphasis throughout the offseason. We thought we went into Wawasee last year a little bit tired. We would cramp up quite a bit. So that was one of our focuses coming in is to make sure that stuff going forward that we wouldn’t have those issues. I’ve been very proud of our team’s conditioning. The time they’ve been able to put into it has helped us out a ton.”

Meanwhile, Knox fell to Culver Academy, a Class 4A school, 47-46 last week, yielding the winning touchdown in the final minute.

Knox has moved junior Myles McLaughlin, already the school’s all-time leading rusher after his sophomore year, to quarterback. With McLaughlin taking snaps, Knox’s offense looks like a wildcat offense. Moriarty raves about McLaughlin’s “football knowledge.”

“He doesn’t throw the ball a lot,” Moriarty said. “They’re 90 percent run and 10 percent pass. He’s more of a wildcat quarterback. … He’s more of a tailback in that situation. They just gain another blocker by having him take the snap, which poses a very difficult challenge for the defense because they add another blocker, so they can try to outnumber you.”

Knox also has a prolific tailback in Jake Conroy, who also stars in the secondary and at kicker.

Defensively, Knox runs a 4-4 scheme but has allowed 94 points in three games.

“They have a lot of big linemen up front, and they do get off the ball well, especially offensively and defensively,” Moriarty said. “The way that Culver Military scored was they threw the ball around a little bit – a lot of screens and misdirection, which at times kind of put them in a bind a little bit. But overall, their defense is very talented. They’ve got five two-way starters, but the rest of them are pretty fresh, and they do get up and down the field pretty aggressively.”

In addition to Phillips, Hunter Paxton remains out due to a back injury.

Pioneer (2-1, 1-0 Hoosier North) at Caston (0-3, 0-1), 7 p.m.

After a 57-6 loss in Week 2 to Knox, Pioneer regained some confidence defensively with a 35-0 win over Winamac last week. It marked the third straight year that Pioneer had shutout the Warriors, and linebackers Eli Guffey, Noah VanMeter and J.J. Solano each had at least nine tackles.

“Obviously, the Knox game did not go as planned,” Pioneer coach Adam Berry said. “You know, we knew it was going to be a battle, but we were definitely expecting that type of outcome. During the week, we talked to them about what happened? And they admitted, ‘Coaches, we weren’t reading our keys.’ So that was a huge point of emphasis going into the Winamac game: Do your job and good things will happen.

“We tell the defensive line…, ‘You do what you need to do, and it frees up the linebackers to run free and make plays.’ And that’s exactly what happened against Winamac.”

Caston sophomore Ashton Bowyer made his season debut and ran for 137 yards last week. Bowyer was one of three Caston players to throw a pass along with Gavin Mollenkopf and Jabez Yarber. Still, Caston ran the ball 40 times as compared to 11 passes.

“It’s different in a way than Knox’s single wing, but I’d still definitely call it a single wing,” Berry said. “They still run. They may even call some of the plays same as when they were straight wing-T. Same concepts, but yeah, definitely more of a single wing offense.”

Meanwhile, Caston will try to shore up a run defense that yielded 324 yards to North MIami, much of it to the big three of Hartley Hoover, Kody Whann and Lake Musall.

“We’re undisciplined and don’t read what’s being coached,” Caston coach Chris Ulerick said. “Last week, it was more of the same. We couldn’t get off the field on third and fourth down. We just consistently don’t hit the right spot, right gap, right assignment. Whatever you want to call it, we don’t get there. So we’ve certainly got to get that fixed. Hopefully, this week it’s fixed, but you just never know.”

Pioneer quarterback Micah Rans has 327 yards rushing and eight touchdowns already through three games, and VanMeter has 276 yards on 7.1 yards per carry.

“He’s your typical Pioneer wing-T quarterback,” Ulerick said of Rans. “He distributes it when he needs to, and he certainly is the cog that makes the whole wheel go. He does what he needs to do. He’s efficient with the ball. When he’s asked to throw, he can throw a good ball. He takes care of the ball. That’s the biggest thing.”

Caston has not beaten Pioneer since 1996. Due to the reconfiguration of the Hoosier North schedule, Pioneer is traveling to Caston for the second straight year.

Culver (1-2, 0-1 Hoosier North) at Winamac (1-1, 0-1), 7 p.m.

Culver had 99 yards rushing in a 49-8 loss to Class 1A, No. 6 Triton last week. They will try to improve upon those numbers against a Winamac defense that allowed 271 yards rushing in a 35-0 loss to Pioneer last week.
The Culver defense will try to stop Winamac’s Tearson Wolford, who ran for 69 yards on 14 carries last week against Pioneer. Culver allowed 320 yards on the ground to Triton.
These two teams have split their last eight meetings. The home team has won the last three meetings. Due to the reconfiguration of the Hoosier North schedule, Culver is traveling to Winamac for the second straight year. Winamac won 45-14 last year at Roudebush Field against the Cavs.

RTC area football rankings

Class 2A, Sectional 36: No. 14 Alexandria, No. 19 Rochester
Class 3A, Sectional 26: No. 7 Tippecanoe Valley, No. 10 (tie) West Noble, No. 14 (tie) Garrett
Class 1A, Sectional 41: No. 1 North Judson
Class 1A, Sectional 42: No. 3 Carroll (Flora), No. 12 Pioneer
Other ranked TRC teams: Class 3A, No. 19 Maconaquah
Other ranked INSC teams: Class 3A, No. 14 (tie) Knox
Other ranked Hoosier North teams: Class 1A, No. 6 Triton, Class 1A, No. 10 North Miami