Published: August 29, 2008 12:23 am         

WICKER: Berries look like winners

Logansport beat Twin Lakes 34-20 in season opener

The Logansport football team was able to run over a pretty good Twin Lakes team in its season opener for the second year in a row last week.

Remember, this was pretty much the same Twin Lakes group that nearly pulled off a Class 3A sectional championship last year before falling to a heavily-favored Western squad, 12-7. The Indians definitely had their chances against Western last year but against Logan this year, I have a hard time believing they could have won that game under any circumstances. Of course a big play here or there might have put more pressure on the Berries and made it a different game, so you never know.

After observing this year’s Berries I must say they are a fairly small team. Of course they’ve got some big guys — senior lineman Joel Konkle is 6-5, 260 pounds, for instance. But they’ll likely run into much bigger teams in the North Central Conference and IHSAA Tournament play.

But in high school football size often is not that big of a factor. I remember the 1995 Logan team that I was a member of when I was a sophomore is a good example of this. I was deservedly well down on the depth chart but did often play as a scout-team player against the Berries’ starters.

That team was arguably the greatest Logansport football team of all time with guys like Jason Spear, Matt Harris, Sean McCann, Adam Parmeter, Chad Piercy, Ross Anderson, Chris Kuhn, Matt Danely, Tony Brown, Phil Burton and a host of others leading the way. I know I left out some key players and I apologize to those guys I left out. Injuries were eventually the main downfall of that team, but when everyone was healthy it could be argued it was a state-champion caliber team. I remember at the time the North Central Conference was considered one of, if not the best conferences in the nation in athletics, and the Berries did win the NCC that season despite being hampered by injuries at the end of the season.

Anyway, going up against that team in practice everyday I would say the second-best offensive lineman on the team was Scott Hughes, who I think I remember was listed at 155 pounds. The best o-lineman was left tackle McCann, who was huge and won several end-of-the-season awards. I remember hearing that if he was just a few inches taller he would have been a Division I lineman. And the coaches’ showed their faith in Hughes by putting him right beside McCann at left guard.

It just goes to show you, in football it really comes down to who’s the best, not who’s the biggest. With lineman, for instance, superior speed, quickness, form, technique, stamina and toughness can trump size in many instances. The problem is when you run into someone who’s bigger than you that’s just as good as you. Then you’ll come up short more times than not. But there are a lot of other factors in football and you see big upsets all the time with smaller teams knocking off bigger teams.

Another thing about this year’s Berries is they have a home run hitter in new starting quarterback Derek Rowe who can break off a game-breaking run at any time. I remember back in ’95 that player for us was Spear. It seemed like any time it was third- or fourth-and-long and we needed a big play, we’d just pitch it to Spear and more times than not he’d get the first down. Rowe’s not quite the same physical-type runner as Spear, but he’s also able to throw the ball and run the option which presents defenses different types of headaches.

All in all, the Berries should rack up a lot of wins this season and be in the hunt for the NCC title. Although the NCC isn’t what it once was in terms of football, it’s still impressive when a school with an enrollment of about 1,300 can beat schools with about 700 more students on a consistent basis. Of course major challenges will be looming with the likes of Huntington North and Kokomo.

Beau Wicker is the sports editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5113 or by e-mail at beau.wicker@pharostribune.com.