 The Durand Panthers Three Time Defending Middle Border Conference Champions |
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Durand Rolls At Altoona Scrimmage/8-22/ The Durand Panthers made an impressive showing in going 3-0 at the Altoona scrimmage last Friday night. Durand opened up with a 3-1 win over Altoona, followed by a 3-1 win over Thorp, and capped off the night with a 2-0 win against Hayward to wrap up a perfect scrimmage. After Altoona and Thorp both scored against the Durand defense on their opening drives, Coach Rosemeyer tightened up the screws on defense and the Panthers surrendered very few yards the rest of the way against those two teams before going on to shut-out the Hayward Hurricanes.
On offense, the Wing-Back trio made up of juniors Kaleb Spieker, Joe McMahon, and Adam King looked very impressive against all three teams. Kaleb showed why he is ranked as one of the top forty players in the class of 2005 by using his speed, agility, and power to break off huge runs nearly at will. Joe McMahon also broke out some nice moves and had several nice runs to the outside and displayed some rather impressive stiff arms to defenders in the open field. The third man in the Wing-Back rotation, Adam King, contributed nicely and picked up good yardage on nearly every carry; including one huge run of over 30 yards that he broke for a touchdown against Thorp. The offensive line play, especially that of seniors Jason Pittman and Troy Laschinger, was also very impressive at times.
Durand also showed that they're not afraid to air the ball out every now and then, which is a change of pace from the past couple of years. Jake Haskins connected with Tight End Eric Weber for a touchdown in the scrimmages against Altoona and Hayward, and also threw a touchdown pass to one of Durand's other Tight Ends, Brett Keys. Haskins nearly connected for a few more touchdowns, but slightly over-threw a couple of passes and had some dropped in the end zone. If this was the middle of the season and Durand had more time to work on the timing in the passing game, I think that those would've been completions.
On defense, the Panthers looked a little shakey after Altoona marched down the field and scored on their opening possession, but the Panthers didn't give up hardly any yards the rest of the way. Against Thorp, the Cardinals scored on a long bomb on their second play of the scrimmage and were very hyped up to have scored against a bigger Durand team. After that, their yardage total was next to zero, as Durand stuffed nearly every running play that Thorp attempted and also shut down their passing game as well. Against Hayward, not much went wrong other than maybe two or three plays where Hayward managed to break to the outside and pick up a few yards on option plays. Other than that, yardage was pretty tough for Hayward to come by against last year's second ranked defense in the Middle Border Conference. Two players who I thought stuck out for Durand on defense were senior linebacker Jason Pittman and junior corner Adam King. Pittman stuffed practically every attempt that came up the middle, and King showed some great athletisism in what looked to be an improved secondary from last year. Although it was just a scrimmage, I think Durand looked very good and looks to be ready for this Friday's game against Barron at UW-Stout at the Gridiron Classic.
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Defense Dominates Intra-Squad Scrimmage/8-16/
On the ensuing kickoff, the Purple team marched down the field and capped off their drive with a 27 yard touchdown pass from Quarterback Jake Haskins to Tight End Brett Keys. Their conversion attempt also failed, and the scrimmage ended in a 6-6 tie. Durand players just started live contact at practice the day before, and that just made some of the hits that took place at the scrimmage even more unreal because it shows that there are a lot of players on this year's team who aren't afraid to pop the pads and take somebody out. Head Coach Dan Lerum was quoted in the Durand newspaper as saying that he was very pleased with the hitting that occured and the solid effort, but that the team still had a long ways to go. Looks like Durand has another great season of football ahead of them.
Pictured: Junior Wing-Back Adam King breaks off a run around the left side of the line for a first down.
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If you were hoping that the annual Purple/Gold Durand Intra-Squad Scrimmage would feature lots of scoring and big plays, then you walked away from Wayne Field disappointed on Saturday because it was the hard hitting defenses of both squads that stole the show. As a matter of fact, the game was locked at a 0-0 tie until late in the third quarter when junior Wing-Back Joe McMahon was able to cash in on a touchdown run to put the Gold team up 6-0, but the conversion attempt failed.