Familiar foes face off

Updated: October 20, 2011 9:38PM

There are two ways to look at Merrillville’s 27-24 victory over Lake Central two weeks ago.

One one hand, Lake Central’s special teams broke down and allowed Merrillville to block two punts that immediately yielded touchdowns.

On the other hand, Merrillville needed two huge — and uncommon — special teams plays to beat Lake Central. Not to mention the Dylan Morang kick return for a touchdown that was wiped out by, of all things, an offsides penalty on Merrillville.

LC coach Brett St. Germain isn’t sure which way to look at it. The special teams failures eat at him, but he wonders how his players view it heading into tonight’s sectional-opening rematch at Merrillville’s Demaree Stadium.

“I’m sure our guys feel a sense that we did some things that prevented us from winning,” St. Germain said. “You would think deep down that they get a sense that if they can clean some things up, they feel pretty good about our chances.”

St. Germain has been careful not to disrupt the routine that led to Lake Central’s remarkable 8-1 turnaround season. He’s treating this game just like any other, and expects his players to do the same.

“It’s kind of been business as usual for us,” he said. “We haven’t really overplayed it or tried to play up the revenge angle. Our model this year is we need to show up each day and take care of business. We’re not getting away from that.”

Having a rematch so soon after the first game is nothing new in Sectional 1, which includes seven of the eight Duneland Conference schools. After all, in 2007 and 2010, Merrillville played Chesterton in Week 9, then again in Week 10.

Merrillville coach Zac Wells said he can’t worry about the quirks of the schedule. He said he held nothing back in the first meeting with Lake Central, so there won’t be any surprises tonight.

“We attack each game individually and independently,” Wells said. “Obviously, we went after it and tried to win the first time. When this happens, we go out and gameplan to win both those games. I think you do your kids a disservice if you don’t. The kids put in a lot of work and a lot of time, and each and every week you want to put them in a position to win the game.”

There will be one significant new wrinkle for the Pirates, and that’s taiback Dylon Collins. The Bowman transfer just became eligible, and ran for 120 yards and a touchdown in his Merrillville debut last week, a 35-21 win over Chesterton that earned a share of the DAC title with Lake Central.

Collins joins Darryl Peppers to form a potent combo in the backfield, but Wells said the Pirates won’t get away from what’s worked for them all these years. Quarterback Jake Raspopovich still will be throwing plenty.

“We’re pretty balanced, so there’s no conscious choice to run the ball more by any stretch of the imagination,” Wells said. “We’ve always tried to take what the defense has given us.”

LC’s defense usually doesn’t give much. With standouts such as Gelen Robinson, Tyler Szczecina, Ike Spearman and Morang, the Indians are aggressive and stout.

Spearman just verbally committed to Ole Miss — a rare region player to end up at an SEC school. He spent much of his summer attending college combines, and the effort paid off in a big way.

“Ike’s worked extremely hard in the offseason and really just dedicated himself to being a good football player,” St. Germain said. “We think it’s a case of when you do things the right way good things happen to you.”

Spearman won’t be the last LC player among this bunch to go Division I. But the focus now is on the short term, and on beating Merrillville to continue LC’s Renaissance seasons.

“This is the team that handed us our first loss, so we know what we’re up against,” St. Germain said. “We’ll find out at 7 p.m. how mentally tough we really are.”

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