Pre=Game Expections At Silver Lake

From the Capital-Journal:

SILVER LAKE — Perhaps as much as any time in C.J. Hamilton’s legendary 44-year coaching career, Silver Lake began the 2019 with a whole lot of uncertainties.

Particularly at the skill positions, where the Eagles graduated 2,000-yard passer Mason Griffin, 1,500-yard rusher Christian Stoner and their top-four leading receivers.

Needless to say, Hamilton wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to get from the new faces in last Friday’s opener against St. Marys. And it’s safe to say, he was pleasantly surprised with how they performed in leading Silver Lake to a 38-12 victory.

“I was pretty well pleased with their effort,” Hamilton said. “There were some technical things, but that’s always to be expected because they’re so green. But they handled it pretty well. We were aggressive and not tentative, whereas I thought the year before we were tentative and worried about making a mistake.”

New starting quarterback Cody Hay was efficient, completing 15 of 27 passes for 214 yards and two touchdowns. Gannon Remer, last year’s second-leading rusher, finished with 112 yards and a touchdown and Logan Matzke, Kyler Kaniper and Nate Boyden each had at least three catches and 40 yards receiving, with Matzke and Kaniper hauling in touchdown grabs.

The Eagles led just 17-12 going into the fourth quarter before delivering a late knockout blow with 21 fourth-quarter points.

As solid as the first outing was, Hamilton knows his team will have to be even sharper this week. It’s War on 24 week, with arch rival Rossville coming to town for a 7 p.m. showdown for an early edge in the race for the Mid-East League title.

“We’re not near where we need to be and I’m sure most teams are in that situation,” Hamilton said. “As long as we’re making progress, and we hope that continues every week.”

Rossville also opened the season with its share of question marks, though perhaps not as many as Silver Lake. The Bulldawgs also debuted a new quarterback with sophomore Torrey Horak taking over the position this year after the graduation of 1,000-yard rusher and passer Garrett Carver.

Horak made the transition a seamless one, completing 6 of 8 passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns and adding a team-high 67 rushing yards with another score in leading the Bulldawgs to a 28-8 victory over Class 1A No. 4 Centralia. Bo Reeves caught both touchdown passes, including a 94-yarder, and finished with 150 yards on five catches.

“He had some nice numbers, and what I take away is, he’s got one game of experience now,” Rossville coach Derick Hammes said. “I think he can do better and I think he’ll tell you he can do better. It was a good baseline for him, and moving forward, we’ll see even more progress. And hopefully, that’s the case this week, because we’re going to need good quarterback play in a game like this.”

Hammes said there were plenty of positives to pull out of the Centralia victory. While the Bulldawgs gave up 246 yards on the ground to the Panthers, they didn’t allow a touchdown until Devon Feldkamp broke a 52-yard run in the fourth quarter.

“I thought we were sturdy against the run and I wasn’t sure how that would correlate for us,” Hammes said. “I don’t think they knocked us off the line of scrimmage like they like to do. Usually you’re concerned about first-week tackling, and I think the missed tackles we had were angles and that means hopefully we’re a good tackling team.”

Having a physical test to start the season can only help the Bulldawgs as they prepare for Silver Lake. Even though the Eagles operate out of a spread formation and throw the ball nearly half of the time, Silver Lake has always prided itself on being a physical team, and that’s not lost on Hammes.

“Don’t let Silver Lake fool you, they like to establish the ground game and traditionally they play as good of defense as anyone you’ll see on your schedule,” he said. “There’s some correlation with Centralia in that sense. But on the flip side, you’re also going to see the most balanced high school football team you’ll see.”

Silver Lake won last year’s contest 17-14 and has won three straight in the series. Two of those three wins were decided by eight points or less, and Hamilton expects something similar Friday night.

“It always is,” Hamilton said. “Sometimes it’s a high-scoring battle and sometimes it’s a low-scoring battle. But both teams compete and take a great deal of pride in the game of football, and I would expect it to be strongly competitive and very tight, coming down to how we handle a couple situations or how they handle it. That’s usually the difference in this game.”

The Capital-Journal is predicting an Eagle victory.