FORT WAYNE – Homestead receiver Isaac Griffith, who returned after missing two weeks with a left ankle injury in Friday’s 24-13 win over New Haven, can’t wait for next week’s Class 5A sectional game against No. 4 Snider (9-0).
Griffith is connected to the Panthers through his family, and he still remembers being stopped short of a touchdown the last time the No. 9 Spartans (9-0) played Snider in a sectional game.
“It’s a big thing with me, because my grandpa started the Snider football program, so it is a family thing,” Griffith said. “And it has just been there, because two years ago, I got tackled at the 5-yard line after catching a pass. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I talk about it, because it was the last play of the game. That just haunts me. That play, I can envision every thing that happened.
“I don’t want that to happen to us this year.”
Battering Busco
Churubusco coach Lee Etzler just smiles when someone points out that his battering-ram running back Jason Nicodemus appears to be a clone of his former battering-ram running back, Kyle Mathewson.
This is, after all, how they do things here: One guy leaves, another guy takes his place. It’s one of the big reasons why the Eagles locked up a fourth straight NECC title Friday with a 38-16 hammering of previously unbeaten Lakeland.
“The group of freshmen we get every year are pretty excited to be a part of what’s going on, and it’s not very difficult to convince them to do what we ask them to do,” he says. “They come in and they’ve seen the success, and they want to be a part of it. And not only do they want to be a part of it, they want to build upon what’s been done before.”
Heritage on roll
Heritage has won seven of its last eight games, with the lone blemish being a 13-10 overtime loss to Leo. Since then, the Patriots have outscored Bluffton, Jay County and Garrett 136-33.
To say Heritage is peaking would be an understatement.
“It has been a great run,” Heritage coach Dean Lehrman said. “The kids have really bought into what we are doing, and it has taken awhile, but they are getting there.”
