September 6th, the Logansport Berries varsity football team suffered a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Lafayette Central Catholic High. Even after the team’s grueling practices, hours of studying film and tons of time in the weight room, they came only so close to defeating our opponent with the final score of 21 Berrries, 23 Lafayette Central.
After this defeat, the team plans to exert over twice the amount of pressure, effort and willpower to guarantee a win over their next opponents, win the homecoming game, and hopefully win a state championship.
“I’m just mad, I’m feeling lots of emotions,” senior Chris Anthony said. “I think we definitely have more, we made a couple of big mistakes that really hurt us, there were new plays that this team came up, something we had never seen before and they just happened to capitalize on something we’d never seen before and if we just fix those big errors it’s a different ball game where we win.”
The Logansport Berries is made up of resilient people who, even after a defeat, think about the future and how to improve to make sure they never have to have this same taste ever again.
“It was a battle to the fourth quarter, we made a few mistakes which cost us but we did a lot of great things,” senior Deagan Kitchel said. “Now we got some fire in us. Benton Central next week, we’re gonna run the ball hard, make some pass plays, we’re gonna pound them and have a big win. Let’s go 36-0.”
Logansport High School is ranked much lower than Lafayette Central Catholic High, yet they’re able to hold their own against such a tough opponent. They fought fiercely and without fear only concentrating on the prize and power of each of our athletes. Even their opponents understood that they were not going down without a fight.
“It was a great contest, very competitive, obviously, I mean 23-21. It was exciting up until the very last second, so hats off to Logansport. They’re a very well-coached team, I got a lot of respect for coach Johnson, he’s a hall-of-fame coach and we were just fortunate enough to come on top,” Lafayette Central Catholic High Football Coach Bryan Nay said. “I love Logansport’s style of play as it’s physical downhill football. I think they’re gonna be a good squad, and they’re suiting up for a really good season.”
If someone asked any player or coach on the Berries team, all they would have is fire in their eyes and victory in their minds.
“When you play good teams, you get better so this was a good learning experience for us,” senior Tate Strong said.
Our team may have lost but we only plan to get 100% better to get our revenge next time we face any team which got lucky enough to beat us.
“It’s always tough to lose games like that, but I know we’re a team that can persevere and find a way to come back next week to play hard,” defensive coordinator Troy Hudsund said. “We have a good football team with a lot of kids who care.”
On top of the team, the fan recognition is phenomenal, even having coaches say communication got difficult because of how loud the fans were, giving them much appreciation for the support.
“I think our boys were definitely giving it their all, I noticed our boys were very tired,” junior Belkis Perez said. “I felt like our student section was trying our best to hype them up, I feel like we did a good job.”
