Published: August 23, 2008 01:15 am         

Depth, talent prevails

Logansport wears down Twin Lakes to win its opener

With one glance of the rosters entering Friday night’s game at Logansport Stadium, one could see the hosts had an advantage against visiting Twin Lakes, especially in the hot and humid conditions.

The Berries had 24 more players listed than their visitors and it was apparent this advantage in depth helped wear down their opponent. Logansport scored 21 straight points spanning the end of the second quarter and most of the third in its 34-20 season-opening win.

“They’re smart, [Logan coach Bucky Kramer is] smart. It’s really a battle of attrition and they just keep coming at us, keep coming at us, and they’ve just wore us down the last two years,” said Twin Lakes coach Brad Urban, whose squad was defeated by Logansport 21-7 in last year’s opener.

“In the third quarter we just stood around and obviously were tired. But we’ll learn from this. ... We didn’t give up, but we were just not as effective on either side of the ball in the second half. Obviously they won the second half and they won the game.”

A turning point in the contest was how Logan executed a two-minute drill at the end of the first half. With his team trailing 14-13, Logansport quarterback Derek Rowe capped a 58-yard drive that spanned 2:20 with a three-yard touchdown run, his third of the game. Joe Flory blasted through the Twin Lakes defense with a two-point conversion run to give the Berries a 21-14 lead going into the break.

Rowe finished with 172 yards rushing and the three touchdowns and 54 yards passing in his debut as the Berries’ starting quarterback.

Rowe was critical of his own performance.

“I made some bad reads. Some of that stuff I did should have never happened. But we’ll get that cleaned up, get everybody involved ... we’ll get it going,” he said.

Urban had a different take.

“They can do a lot of things in the option with [Rowe], so he was really impressive,” he said.

Rowe had a touchdown run of 78 yards to start the scoring and later in the first quarter added a 17 yarder. Joe Flory had a one-yard TD run in the third quarter and Wilmer McGill capped off the scoring for the Berries with an 11-yard scamper late in the third quarter.

Dylan McKay had two touchdowns for the Indians (0-1), one on a 21-yard reception from Chris Broussard and another on an eight-yard run. John Dishon, who led Twin Lakes with 120 rushing yards, scored on a seven-yard run as the final few seconds of the game ticked off the clock.

Chris Titus had an interception for Logan that set up the first score and Matt Ervin blocked a punt that set up the second. Mandell Stephens had an interception for the Berries in the second half.

Kramer was happy to get the win over his alma mater, but he pointed to 11 penalties and three turnovers as points of emphasis heading into next week’s game at Peru.

“You just can’t do that and play championship football. We’ve got things to work on, and those are things that’ll get fixed. I know our kids will step up to that challenge,” Kramer said.

“This takes me back to two years ago when we had a lot of young kids starting. Young kids make mistakes and we’re going to let those kids make mistakes because if they’re making mistakes going a thousand miles an hour, than that’s what we coach them to do. It’s on us as coaches to get those things fixed. We’ve got to keep our players playing hard.”