All football teams across the state of Indiana want to be playing their best football at this point in the season. Crawfordsville believes they are doing that. CHS is coming off a dominant 44-12 win over Frankfort last week and add to that good spurts against Lebanon and Tri-West in the last few weeks, and there’s reason to believe that the Athenians are clicking at the right time. CHS comes into the Class 3A Sectional 29 with a 1-8 record. With the sectional being made up of mainly Sagamore Conference teams, the Athenians drew one of the two non-SAC teams in the 2-7 Speedway Sparkplugs.
Cville will have to make the trip to Indy for the matchup, but as Crawfordsville coach Brad Clark noted, his team is excited to get to play a new opponent when the two teams square off on Friday.
“It’s going to be fun getting to play someone we aren’t used to,” Clark said. “We’ve drawn WeBo the last two years and with so many SAC teams in that sectional it’s exciting to get a new opponent. We were excited when see saw the draw and you add in the win last week and there’s been a nice jolt and different energy in practice this week.”
The Sparkplugs average right around 22 points per game while giving up 28. Their offense is led by sophomore QB Connor Moreland who on the season is 116-196 (59.2%) for 1,505 yards and 10 touchdowns while throwing six interceptions. Speedway does have a good rushing attack as well and their bell cow is sophomore Jazz Coleman who has carried the rock 178 times for 743 yards and seven TD’s. Fellow sophomore Avery Mitchell is their go-to target at wide-out. On the season he’s caught 51 passes for 715 yards and four scores.
“They’re a very similar team to us and what they like to do offensively,” Clark said of Speedway. “They’ve got a great wide receiver who they love to get the ball so we’ve got some things we need to adjust to try and take him away. As far as we go, these last three weeks has really been building for us and we’re beginning to build some momentum. You combine that with our JV winning the last three games of their season and there’s a lot of excitement within our program and we’re trying to carry that into Friday.”
Senior QB for the Athenians in Kaden Patton ended the regular season throwing for 1,520 yards (131-258) with eight TD’s. Cville was finally able to get their running game going a week ago as Braeden Hites had three scores on the ground. On the season he’s carried the ball 57 times for 267 yards. But as many people know CHS is led by senior standout Ethan McLemore who has proven he’s arguably the best wide-out in the Sagamore Conference. McLemore has accumulated 852 receiving yards on the season which puts him at 11th in the state.
Clark noted how with it being the post-season and win-or-go-home, that it’s a message his team is taking very seriously this week as they’re playing for the right to keep their pads for one more week.
“That was the first thing we told them when we came in on Monday to start is that we’re playing for a season and our seniors are playing for their careers,” Clark said. “One more week has been our saying and we want to keep this family and this group together for one more week. The kids have taken that to heart and are geared up and ready to go.”
