By CORY ISENBERG
The Tribune-Democrat
November 05, 2008 12:19 am
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The football teams of Johnstown and Indian Valley have met twice in postseason play with the Warriors winning the first meeting 42-14 in 2002 and the Trojans winning the other 17-6 the following year.
The squads will clash a third time on the gridiron at 7 p.m. Friday at Trojan Stadium in the District 6 Class AAA semifinal with the winner facing top-seeded Hollidaysburg (9-1) – which has a bye - in the championship game Nov. 14 at Altoona’s Mansion Park.
“It’s a great accomplishment for the school and a great success for the kids especially since they’ve been facing adversity every week with all the injuries that we’ve had this season,” Johnstown second-year coach Kevin Marabito said. “It’s great to be back in the playoffs, but we don’t want to just be happy to be there. We want to try to make some noise.”
Second-seeded Johnstown (7-3) will put its three-game win streak up against third-seeded Indian Valley (4-6), which has won two straight, but is just 1-4 on the road.
Johnstown averages almost 26 points per game while giving up 10. The Warriors have scored 20 per game, giving up 28.5. Last week, Johnstown defeated Penn Cambria 32-26 and Indian Valley defeated Lewistown 40-14.
At the start of the season, the defending District 6 champion Warriors had just two returning starters back on offense and two back on defense.
“We lost a lot of seniors off of last years team and we’ve had a lot of injuries that we’ve had to work through this year,” Indian Valley coach Tom Shearer said. “We have to be able to control the ball and avoid turnovers and move the ball against Johnstown. They have a nice team with team speed and good size up front.”
For Indian Valley, quarterback Will Long and fullback Cody Battista were both injured earlier in the season and returned for the last two games. Mitch Fultz and Nickolas Myers are the tailbacks while Hunter Thompson is one of the team’s top receivers.
“What we’ve seen of Indian Valley on tape, they are a solid football team,” Marabito said. “They use either a bunch or spread formation on offense. No. 33 (Mitch Fultz) can run the ball both inside and out. They have pretty decent size on the line and have some speed. We are going to have to play solid defense against them.”
Johnstown’s leading rusher, senior Quadir Christian, wasn’t in the Trojans lineup last week against Penn Cambria because he was attending a family funeral and will return this week. Christian has rushed for 1,167 yards on 149 carries.
Trojans’ junior quarterback John Siciliano has rushed for 608 yards and passed for 817 while junior Jordan Jefferson and junior LaQuinn Stephens-Howling have also been key contributors for Johnstown. Junior Richard Agurs is Johnstown’s leading receiver with 14 catches for 250 yards.
“We can spread the ball around,” Marabito said. “There defense is either a 3-4 or a 4-0. The biggest thing is we don’t know how they will play us and will have to adjust on the fly. We’re still pretty banged up. We’ve been plugging different players in every week. The kids have adapted and filled the roles we’ve asked them to play.
Marabito says his team has to be able to stop Indian Valley’s offense.
“Our best defense will be our offense,” Marabito said. “We had the ball 31 minutes (against Penn Cambria). We have to keep the ball out of their hands. We have to be able to execute, but not be overly excited and avoid turnovers and penalties. We have to cut down on those. We’ve made far too many mistakes. We have to eliminate those mistakes and keep their offense off the field.”
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