Lazerus: Wheeler a foe and an inspiration

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Head Coach Patrick Brown poses for a portrait at North Newton High School Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011, in Morrocco, Ind. | Scott M. Bort~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: December 4, 2011 11:10AM

Pat Brown knows the deal. He’s under no delusions. The North Newton football coach knows exactly what I, you and everybody else thinks about his team’s chances in Friday’s Class 2A sectional championship game against unbeaten Wheeler.

“I could probably tell you with 90 percent certainty that there’s not a soul in the state of Indiana outside of this school and this community who thinks we can beat Wheeler,” Brown said.

Funny thing about that, though. It sounds awfully familiar in this year’s 2A playoffs.

“There’s not a soul in the state of Indiana besides the kids at Wheeler and their parents and the people in that school that believed Wheeler was going to win that ballgame,” Brown said.

“That ballgame,” of course, was Wheeler’s seismic 12-7 upset of Andrean in the sectional opener. “That ballgame” has proven the old sports adage that anything can happen on any given day. And “that ballgame” has turned the tables on Wheeler, which suddenly is the unbeatable super-heavyweight going against the overmatched glass-jawed tomato can that nobody believes in.

“Absolutely, it’s tournament time and anything can happen,” said Wheeler coach Dan Klimczak. “But we really haven’t looked at it that way. I know this is coachspeak, but the whole time, even when we were the underdog, we were only focused on getting our kids ready to play their game, and to play to the best of their ability. I usually don’t look at it in regards to favorites and underdogs, we just look at it as Xs and Os.”

Wheeler, to its credit, doesn’t sound like an overconfident team. The Bearcats aren’t talking about a potential regional game at home against fellow unbeaten Bremen, or a potential semistate matchup with mighty Bishop Luers. After all, the last time Wheeler won a sectional championship was in 2007, when the current Bearcats seniors were in eighth grade.

That’s a point Klimczak has made a few times this week. 

Not that he has really needed to.

“Our seniors have played in two sectional championship games, and it’s one game they never had the good fortune of winning,” Klimczak said. “So they tell me, ‘Hey, coach, no way, there’s no looking past North Newton whatsoever.’ Our seniors have even gotten after our freshmen and sophomores in practice, saying, ‘Hey, you’d better go hard, this is a big week for us.’ It’s a testament to our seniors’ experience. They’ve been in big games before and they’re ready to accomplish something they’ve never accomplished before.”

Brown knows this. As he put it, “Those kids are too well coached to be overconfident.” But he also knows that Wheeler has been in two very physical games the past two weeks — “an absolute war” against Andrean, and a physically draining win over annual nemesis Rensselaer last week.

And Brown and his Spartans know that if Wheeler can beat Andrean, there’s no reason to think a red-hot team such as North Newton with the region’s most prolific tailback in Chad Schultz can’t shock the state in similar fashion.

That 49-0 loss at home to Wheeler in Week 4 was a lifetime ago, as far as the Spartans are concerned. Starting with a 24-7 loss at Whiting in Week 6, North Newton switched from a 5-2 and 3-5 defense to a 4-4 and 4-3 to take better advantage of the team’s speed and aggressiveness, and to mask the team’s lack of size. The linebackers are flowing more freely, and the Spartans have won five straight since that Whiting loss.

“From our perspective, we’re 5-1 in our last six games since we changed things up,” Brown said. “We’ve been playing with a lot of confidence since then.”

Wheeler’s not hurting for confidence, either, though. The Bearcats are whole again, with dynamic two-way threat Nick Naspinski back at quarterback after missing four games with a broken ankle. Naspinski looked sharp and not the least bit tentative in the 14-7 win over Rensselaer, and Klimczak said he came through fine — “He said everything was sore this week except his ankle,” Klimczak said.

Naspinski’s return last week was a well-kept secret, but Brown wasn’t shocked.

“I knew it was coming sooner or later,” he said. “He’s too good a kid and too hard a competitor to not be involved in this. I figured (Klimczak) would probably break him out in the championship game, whether it was us or River Forest. So maybe I was a little surprised he played last week, but not a lot. He’s a heck of a player.”

And Wheeler’s a heck of a team. At full strength. Playing with as much confidence as it ever has. And no Greater South Shore Conference team has ever even sniffed victory against the Bearcats since the league was formed. North Newton itself has lost its last seven meetings with Wheeler by the combined score of 345-21, including a 46-2 loss in last year’s sectional semifinals and a 41-7 loss in the 2009 sectional opener.

So yes, Pat Brown knows what you think about his team’s chances. But he also knows stranger things have happened — especially this time of year.

“Obviously, they’re a good football team,” Brown said. “But anything can happen.”

Yes, it can. Just ask Wheeler.