A lot on the line for Triton and Culver

Photo courtesy Karen Lee

Story Courtesy The Pilot News
CULVER — Friday night, two teams that have had drastically different seasons will meet in a game important to both programs.

Having one of their best seasons the Triton Trojans hope to go deep in the tournament to cap it off. In their way stands a Culver team that got their first win of the season a week ago against South Central who hopes to continue to move forward in their rebuilding year.

Triton took care of business in round one with a big 71-6 win over North Newton.

“We came out and executed like we talked about last week and I think that we did a good job of preparing and everything worked out,” said Triton head coach Zach Whittaker. “In previous years there is a possibility of our team coming out and even struggling against a team like that. I’m glad we came out and executed right away.”

Having Cole Shively on the field didn’t hurt the Trojans as their quarterback accounted for nearly 300 yards of offense on his own.

“He couldn’t miss on Friday,” said Whittaker. “He was on fire throwing the ball and he made his normal athletic plays with his feet. I’ve said it before I’ll say it again he is the most athletic kid that I have ever coached and I am blessed to have him.”

Shively got some help from his receiving corp with Javan May having a big game.

“Javan May these last five games has really come alive,” said Whittaker. “I think he just needed a little bit of confidence and he finally got that with his touchdown at Pioneer.”

In the meantime, Culver grabbed their first win of the season with a 40-15 win over South Central avenging an early season loss.

“They got us in week two,” said Culver coach Austin Foust. “They were a different football team and we were a different football team. We thought that we’d improved a lot this year and we knew if we got them again we were going to do some different things defensively.”

“I think it says a lot about our kids to go through an 0-9 football season and want to continue and keep playing,” said Foust. “That’s something our kids really believe here is that Culver football plays its best football week 10 and on and I’m glad our kids went out and proved that to everybody.”

After a big win, the fear for Whittaker is that his team may look past Friday night. The coach isn’t afraid of that.

“We understand the goals in front of us and we these kids are extremely motivated to reach those goals,” he said.

“They (Culver) are playing their best football at the right time,” said Whittaker. “You can see on film they are greatly improved. They play very well, especially in the first quarter. We have to execute right away and try to put them away early.”

Foust knows the challenge that his team faces on Friday.

“Coach Whittaker has done a fantastic job. It’s going to be a tough task for us,” said Foust. “When we played them earlier in the year at that point in the season it was probably the best first half of football that we had played. The score was out of reach at the end but we did some good things, we had guys in the right spots we just didn’t make plays.”

“In high school football if you give effort good things are going to happen,” he said. “Somebody may be more talented than you but if you give more effort you can get them. I think our kids are finally buying into that.”

“We are hoping that can translate to stepping up against a good Triton team. They are obviously sectional favorites. We are hoping we can put together a good four-quarter effort.”