Crawfordsville football might be 0-2 through the first two weeks of the football season, but the Athenians have seen bright spots in each of their first two games and that’s what Crawfordsville coach Brad Clark is still trying to emphasize to his team. Now Cville will hit the road on Friday to open up Sagamore Conference play against the No. 3 ranked Western Boone Stars who are 2-0 on the year.
The Stars and Athenians are very familiar with each other as they’ve met up four times in the last two seasons with two meetings coming in the post-season.
“We always have a tremendous amount of respect for Western Boone and Coach (Justin) Pelley because they do things the right way,” Clark said of the Stars. “They’ve had a tremendous amount of success and anytime you get the chance to compete against a program like that it’s fun. Our kids our relishing in the challenge to go over there and hopefully pick up our first win.”
What has plagued the Athenians in their first two games of the season is their in-ability to get the game started off on the right foot. They’ve fallen behind by multiple scores in each game this season and haven’t quite been able to dig themselves out of that hole. This week Clark has relied on his seniors to dictate how they want to begin practice.
“The great thing about guys like (Kaden) Patton and (Ethan) McLemore is we went to those guys and asked them what kinds of things they’d like to see at the beginning of practice. They told us that they wanted to do some hitting drills to get the juices flowing and simulate what it will be like on the first series. I think that’s given us a lot of energy throughout this entire week.”
Through two game Patton is 30-62 with 334 yards through the air. Braeden Hites came on strong last week and provided the Athenian ground game with some big plays as the senior as ran for 125 yards in two games. McLemore has 15 catches for 151 yards as he will always be the go-to receiver for CHS.
For the No. 3 ranked Stars, they’re led out by junior signal caller Brandon Potter who is 15-28 for 243 yards and two touchdowns on the season. Where the Stars are best is on the ground and that starts with senior running back Cannon Brunes who has 27 carries for 189 yards and three touchdowns on the season. Brunes is also one the top linebackers in the state with 28 total tackles and 11 already for loss this season for the Stars.
“Since we’ve played them four times in the last two years, we’ve gotten a good look at what they like to do,” Clark said of scouting for Western Boone. “You see Brunes who is an all-state linebacker and they run him hard at fullback too. He’s a tank and is hard to stop. Brunes represents kind of what our conference is about, trying to stop big physical runners week in and week out. We just have to come ready to tackle.”
Kickoff between the Athenians and Stars is scheduled for 7 p.m. from Dover and can be heard live on Thunder 103.9 as Jared McMurry and Deontae Peete will have the call.
