Homecoming showdown

Published 12:59 am Thursday, September 1, 2011

No guts, no glory.

That’s the thinking in for the Lakewood football team this season. Instead of scheduling a patsy for their homecoming game — a usual practice — the Cougars have perennial Cascade favorite Archbishop Murphy for their homecoming game on Sept. 30.

“We love the h

igh expectations and wouldn’t have it any other way,” Lakewood head coach Dan Teeter said.

The Cougars are returning a wealth of talent across the board, including Oregon State-bound tight end Dustin Stanton. Meanwhile Archbishop Murphy lost a number of talented seniors, including Tani Tupou, Julius Tevaga and Austin VanderWel, which has led to talk of the Wildcats falling back to the pack in the Cascade Conference and being ripe to lose the conference crown.

“I’m sure since we lost Tani, Austin, Julius that people would say that,” Archbishop Murphy running back Alex Galgano, “but I think we’re just as strong as last year.”

Don’t sleep on a talented and deep Wildcat junior class, including Galgano, and fellow running backs Morgan Masanda and Hans VanderWel.

“We lost some big pieces; real team leaders,” said Archbishop Murphy Dave Ward. “What we’re doing is we’ve found we have great team speed, athleticism and depth. So we’re tweaking the offense a little bit to fit the personnel we have.”

One of those pieces is new quarterback Connor Kruse, who takes over for Austin VanderWel. Ward said that Kruse is throwing the ball well early in camp and he’s making good decisions with the ball. With Kruse running the offense and a number of big, speedy receivers expect Archbishop Murphy, which has historically been largely a Wing-T ground attack, to throw the ball more this season, said Ward.

Catching the ball will be four guys who can run and leap. Cameron Guy, Brandon Byrne, Mark Schireman and Austin Broadwell are all rangy wideouts who will help give Kruse reliable targets.

“All four of those guys ran track and competed in high jump so they’re gonna be guys who we think can go up and get the ball,” Ward said.

Kruse, who will be counted on to make big contributions on defense, will get a break from time to time, allowing Archbishop Murphy’s large stable of running backs to take some snaps in the Wildcat.

Back in Lakewood, the Cougars were forced to shake things up at quarterback due to the loss of all-league signal-caller Justin Lane. The Cougars are turning their offense over to two players: Justin Peterson and Colby Schueller.

“Justin Peterson is a phenomenal athlete and he throws the ball well. He gives us a really dynamic running threat at quarterback,” said Teeter. “Colby is good pocket passer and he gives us a chance to have Justin out there at receiver (Peterson was an all-league receiver in 2010).”

Helping both Peterson and Schueller will be Stanton, a 6-foot-5 security blanket.

“We’re blessed to have him,” Teeter said.

One thing Teeter, who has been at Lakewood for five seasons and has seen this year’s senior class mature from eighth graders to team leaders, believes his team’s experience is its trump card.

“These are the kids who have bought in for all four years,” Teeter said. “A lot of them played as freshmen and sophomores and they may have not been physically ready but they got a wealth of experience.

“In the past we got pushed around. We don’t feel like that should happen this year.”

It all should make for an interesting homecoming in Lakewood on Sept. 30.