FORTVILLE — For the third week in the row, the Mt. Vernon Marauders are set to face a totally different style of run-heavy offense.
It started with the Greenfield-Central Cougars and the wishbone. The Marauders held the Cougars to 199 yards on 48 carries, allowing just eight points scored late in a 33-8 win.
Last week was a different type of challenge against the defending Class 5A champion New Palestine Dragons and Indiana’s all-time leading rusher, Charlie Spegal. The Dragons ran for 369 yards — Spegal with 252 of them — in a 49-7 New Palestine win.
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Now, the Marauders are set to face another potent attack from a Delta Eagles team that has dominated four straight games, rushing for 339 yards per game at 8.8 yards per carry. The Eagles are No. 7 in Class 4A, outscoring their opponents 209-13 so far this season.
“We’re playing a great team in Delta,” Mt. Vernon coach Mike Kirschner said. “Haven’t been beat, haven’t really been challenged, have only given up two touchdowns all year. Very physical on defense. (Delta coach) Chris Overholt does a great job. Very well-coached. It’s going to be a real challenge for us.”
Facing their second straight undefeated, ranked opponent means the Marauders don’t have much time to bounce back from their first loss. They enter tonight’s game with a 3-1 mark but have to find a way to get back on track quickly.
“We did some good things against a great New Pal team. It’s just not enough. There’s not enough good things in succession. That’s what I keep telling the kids,” Kirschner said. “Even though we’re 3-1 and we’ve won some games, even in the games we’re winning, the lack of consistency is killing us. We’re making mistakes we shouldn’t be making going into Week 5. If we don’t clean it up, it’s going to be a bit of an issue for us.”
The Eagles flexbone offense has been quite successful to start 2019. They’ve got two runners averaging over 100 yards a game and over 10 yards per carry in senior Wesley Stitt (25 carries for 435 yards) and junior Javaughn Whitfield (41 carries for 419 yards). They’ve also got a 6-foot-6 quarterback, Brady Hunt, who can throw the ball effectively and has six touchdowns to just two interceptions so far this year.
It’s another challenge in a tough stretch of the schedule for the Marauders, who are looking to have a successful Homecoming night.
“It starts with a good week of practice,” senior quarterback/receiver Shaun Shipley said. “Everybody come back in Saturday after the game and just have a good mental focus and not be too caught up with last week and how that went. It wasn’t very good, obviously. We just have to have a good week of practice, get ready for Friday, homecoming game. Everybody is ready to go.”
Shipley started last year’s game against the Eagles even though he was the backup to then-senior Tyson Harley, who is now starting at Anderson University. Shipley threw for 182 yards and the Marauders rushed for 195 yards in the game, but they couldn’t find the end zone for most of the contest.
Mistakes played a big part in that 45-14 loss to the Eagles. Delta returned two interceptions for touchdowns. The Marauders fumbled the ball away, turned the ball over on downs several times and failed on a field goal attempt.
The Mt. Vernon offense knows it needs to be better this year to try to move to 4-1 and 2-1 in Hoosier Heritage Conference play.
“Last year on offense, we weren’t very good. We made a lot of mistakes,” Shipley said. “We were in the red zone a lot and couldn’t finish. We need to be able to finish this week. We need to be able to punch it in.”
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Knightstown at Eastern Hancock, 7 p.m.
Pendleton Heights at New Palestine, 7:30 p.m.
Shelbyville at Greenfield-Central, 7:30 p.m.
Delta at Mt. Vernon, 7:30 p.m.
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