Armstrong River Hawks Football vs. Karns City: Preview

 

 

 

by Jake DeLuca

The bright lights of Friday night are returning next week as the
Armstrong River Hawks kick off the regular season against the Karns City
Gremlins.

With Armstrong moving up to 5A (previously quad-A) in the WPIAL (Western
Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League) and the Gremlins moving up
to triple-A, both teams are looking to prove themselves in their new
divisions.

These two teams have not played each other since Armstrong High School
first came to be, but Armstrong Head Coach Frank Fabian is familiar with
the opponent.

“We looked at some film from last year just to see structure wise what
they are doing. I actually coached against them (Karns City) for six years
(at Kittanning and Redbank Valley) so I have some familiarity with them.
So we have looked at them, but it’s more of a peek, it hasn’t been too in
depth, we’ll look more in depth once we get film from the scrimmages,”
Fabian explained.

Even though Karns City is technically two divisions “lower” than
Armstrong, the River Hawks know not to take them lightly.

“Karns City is a good program. The thing that worries me the most is that
we have a lot of inexperienced guys where this will be their first
(varsity) football game and you just don’t know how they are going to
respond. You’d like to think we are going to respond well, but you never
know until they are under the lights. We only returned four starters on
offense and defense, that is probably what I am most concerned about.
Defensively (Karns City) gives you a lot of different looks, multiple
fronts, so it’s a handful to get the line ready to handle them, for sure,”

Armstrong Head Coach Frank Fabian explained about his opponent.

Karns City the past two seasons has put together an impressive record
(23-3), and this year is in a new conference the Gremlins Head Coach Ed Conto
expects more success.

“From what I’m seeing, there is enough talent to do the same (a ten or
eleven win season). I think the sooner we get people in the right position
we are going to be tough. I just don’t know if that will be two weeks from
now or three weeks from now,” said Conto about his current roster.

Both of these teams are young, with Armstrong only having four offensive
and defensive starters returning and Karns City isn’t much better with
around the same number of starters returning.

So, what should Armstrong expect? Gremlins Head Coach Ed Conto was able to
list some players to look out for next Saturday (August 26th).

“Chandler Turner at tail-back (is a player to watch out for), he split
time last year there and at safety. Cullen Williams was a quarterback last
year, but right now we are working him at tail-back and corner(back). He
(Williams) started at corner last year and split time at quarterback. Jake
King, who is right now doing most of the quarterbacking. Kaiden Powers
split time at the Z last year and he is our slot guy; he’s real explosive.
Aaron Hutchison will be the other Z, so we will have four really good guys
who can carry the ball. Then at the fullback slot I have like five or six
(viable) guys, the top guy I can think of there is Eric Dodd, he is over
200 lbs. at fullback and he can bring it. Then there is three or four
other guys who we work in there: Sebastian Troutman, Jason Crowley, and
another senior, Brandon Hesidence. I have to find two, and they are all
doing well, so that’s difficult. Most of the (offensive and defensive) line
split time last year. We lost a lot of senior linemen, but most of these
guys we have got to see the field and play some. Alec Bard, Ed Cheesman,
Bryant Oddo, Carter Dunmyre, he played tackle last year (Dunmyre), but
this year we are moving him to center. There’s a whole bunch of juniors
that will be moving in too, so it will be interesting,” Canto said.

Both Armstrong and Karns City are smash-mouth, downhill running teams;
Fabian in one word described his team as “blue-collared” or “hard-nosed”
and Gremlins coach Ed Canto described his team as “physical”.

The key for Armstrong to win the game, much like last season, lies on the
legs of Zane Dudek (in 2015 Zane rushed for over 2,000 yards) and his
offensive lines’ ability to block for him. For Karns City the objective of
winning the game is to slow Zane down, which is a lot easier said than
done.

“Dudek is an outstanding back, we don’t slow him down. We will try and
limit him a bit, but he will score and make plays so we will just have to
consistently keep up with him,” Conto said of Dudek.

Karns City will be the first stop for the River Hawks, as they will play
their first three games on the road.

Kick-off is set for 7:00 PM at Diehl Stadium in Karns City.