PLYMOUTH – Plymouth’s Rockies have to feel that there is no place like home and living to play another week at the Rockpile has brought the reward 7-2 South Bend St. Joseph.
The Indians come to Plymouth having lost back to back games in week five and six against Marian (8-2) and Penn (10-0). Last week they survived an opening round playoff scare at home against Hobart. They were able to do all that while replacing 10 starters from a year ago.
“I think St. Joe is well coached. Coach (Ben) Downie does a great job you can tell it all the way down to their stance and the way they get off the ball. Not too long ago they played in back to back state championships in football. It’s a good school, a good program,” said Plymouth coach John Barron. “They run a three four (defensively) like we do. They do it a little differently – they do some things with it I like actually – they have come a long way. Collectively the teams that have beaten them are 18-2. They play a tough schedule. This is going to be a challenge.”
The Rockies had a challenge of their own a week ago in a South Bend Washington team that play from whistle to whistle, but Plymouth weathered that challenge.
“First couple of series we were missing some key blocks at the point of attack but then we got going. Our offensively line were able to figure things out and our skilled guys made some key plays,” said Barron. “We were worried about their quick strike offense. We’d have the game in hand and then you see a green jersey go 60 yards in the blink of an eye. They were very, very physical on defense.”
Plymouth will face a challenging offense that will run first and there are led by a talented senior quarterback.
“Oliver Page is a big kid, everything goes through him, I like the way he makes decisions and when he makes decisions he just goes. He is definitely a guy that has our attention,” said Barron. “Tajah Smith is a real explosive guy and I like their tight end, (Garrett) Lukens. They play a true tight end. They play a lot of formations including some formations that we’ve never seen.
“They want to run the football. It’s not true option but they do run triple. Their quarterback gets some option reads and they have some nice schemes. They use some second level guys to block on the line of scrimmage.”
Stopping that running game is the main task of a Rockie defense that has been up to that challenge for most of the year.
“Tackling the fullback is going to be a challenge. Our ends are going to have to be very disciplined and make the quarterback run and then we have to tackle the quarterback,” said Barron. “We have to be sure we have the right people in position.
“I think we have a good football team when we don’t turn the ball over. We have to figure out the speed of the game, figure out their run game and our kids need to come down the hill and tackle in open space because this team had the ability for big plays.”
