In their Duneland Athletic Conference opener, the CHS football team played a game uncharacteristic of themselves. While the team had some bright moments during last Friday night’s game, by the end of the night, they looked defeated. Offensively, sore thoughts of missed red zone opportunities would linger after the game, while defensively, memories of the ‘big plays’ from Michigan City would remain. The Trojans suffered their first defeat of the season at the hands of the Wolves, 20-0.
In the beginning of the game, Chesterton started well. The Trojan defense took control initially and got offense the ball by stopping MC on fourth down. The offense moved the ball into Michigan City territory, but hit a wall due to penalties. The errors stalled the first Trojan drive, causing them to punt the ball to the Wolves. The defense again lived up to their name, stopping City quickly once again. After receiving another punt, Chesterton didn’t get one first down and continued the trend of punting by both teams.
“I think we went in there with an attitude that we were just going to roll over them without any competition and we totally overlooked them and that’s a big fault on our part,” junior defensive end, and team captain, Owen Edlen said.
Typically, in games like this, fans just wait to see which offense will break out for some big gains first. In this game, it was the Wolves who got going first, crashing through the defense for a 54 yard touchdown run. This would be the only score of the first half, a time where both teams’ offenses were shut down by the other defense. As the teams headed into the locker rooms, Michigan City led 7-0.
The second half picked up right where the first ended. Senior quarterback Brady McCormack led the Trojans down the field, but again, the offense sputtered, and could not produce a touchdown. Later during the third quarter, Michigan City would score again on a 20 yard rushing touchdown. This time, the Wolves would miss the point after attempt, leaving the score 13-0. By the end of the third quarter, the Trojans finally started moving the ball. The drive would last into the start of the fourth quarter, and again took the Trojans into the red zone. Unfortunately for the team, once again, penalties and uncharacteristic mistakes led the Trojans to give up the scoring drive, missing a potential turning point for the offense. The rest of the game the Trojan offense fizzled out and the Wolves scored another touchdown in garbage time to end the game with a final of 20-0.
“It wasn’t that we were incapable of winning the game, it was more that we didn’t execute, therefore we lost the game,” Edlen said
The team has stressed this and said that their mistakes are fortunately correctible, an attitude that they will need to take with them into their next game.
The coaches and players look at the game with regret, however, they will head into the next week with a fresh look on the season. Coaches explain to players the correct mentality to have.
“The coaches really think we need to step it up in practice this week. We had an off week and they think that’s how it correlated from practice to the game, and I agree. We really need to step it up this week,” junior offensive tackle Tyler Nevious explained.
Unfortunately, the team cannot have an undefeated season, but they have been trained over the years to forget the prior week regardless of the result and move on to their current week. The players are still hungry for a DAC football win. This week, they look to earn that victory by beating Laporte in an away game on Friday.
“You find out a lot about a team based off how they respond to a loss and how they respond to adversity,” Edlen concluded.
