Early ‘battle of the unbeatens’ highlights this week’s matchups
Week two of the new football season will have a highlight HNAC game between two clubs that hope for a lot of success in the coming season and two head coaches in their first season at the helm of their programs.
LaVille, ranked #6 in 2A, and Triton, ranked #12 in 1A, will bang heads in the Lancer’s first home game of the season.
Both are coming off big wins, Triton over South Central and LaVille getting by rival Bremen in their opener.
“I was pretty pleased, especially with our defense,” said Triton first-year coach Zach Whitaker. “I think we had six sacks total, especially in crucial situations they stepped up big time.”
“It was a dog fight,” said first-year Lancer boss Jeff Kaiser. “We had a plan. We put points on the board right away that is something you always want to do. Bremen made some adjustments and caught us off guard a little bit. We showed our youth up front when that happened but we maintained it. I think we played with an edge.”
Both coaches have been part of each team building strong programs and there is an obvious mutual respect.
“They are fast they are strong they are big,” said Whitaker of the Lancers. “Typical LaVille team the past couple of years. They look pretty impressive I will say that.”
“They are very talented,” said Kaiser of the Trojans. “Coach Whitaker is doing a great job taking the reins over. I think they are a mirror image of us in all senses of the game.”
There may not be a lot of film to study this early but by mixing past games with what they can see this season both coaches have an idea of what the other might do.
“They like to attack the edge. When they run at you they are very physical,” said Whitaker. “I can see them trying to set the edge on us and try to come right at us. They did a good job against Bremen. It always looks like they are physical on film.”
It is no doubt what Kaiser sees as the biggest threat to his team.
“Number 2,” said Kaiser. ” (Cole Shively) is an athlete. He’s a tremendous athlete at everything he does but I think in football he takes it to another level. He takes a lot of pride in putting that helmet on and it shows.”
“He’s got Workman on the edge who he wants to get the ball to,” said Kaiser. “(Workman) is athletic and you throw in the two running backs (Wayne) Reichert and (Vincent) Prater, I don’t know if either stands out over the other they are both really good running backs. They run with a similar style. We are going to have to shut down both of them and contain number 2.”
Both coaches know that headed into week two the additional stress of preparing for an opponent has to be mixed with preparing your team for the whole season.
“The biggest thing for me is just execution,” said Whitaker. “I don’t want to see us make as many mistakes, especially on that offensive line as we did last week.”
“We are going to have to have discipline,” said Kaiser. “We can’t have any self-inflicted wounds. We just need consistency. A lot of programs are speaking about that heading into week two. You need to see growth. If we can prevent some of our own mistakes and win the trenches we feel like if we can do those things we have a chance. And that’s a lot.”
