By RICHIE HALL
Reporter Sports Editor
The football sectionals are a little different from the other sports when it comes to who a team’s opponents are.
In most of those other sports, a team usually plays most, if not all, of their potential sectional foes during the regular season. Sometimes that happens in football, too: Sheridan and Guerin Catholic will be facing teams that are conference opponents and yearly rivals.
As for Hamilton Heights? The Huskies will travel to North Montgomery for their first-round game in Class 3A Sectional 26. Heights has only played the Chargers once in recent history, on Oct. 28, 2011 in a sectional semi-final game. The Huskies won 30-7.
“The sectional’s been like that for us for a while,” said Heights coach Mitch Street. “It seems like we’ve been flip-flopping north and south, and we just don’t have opponents that we’ve seen very much of for whatever reason, however they decide to align.
“It does make it challenging. You’ve got to do your homework. You got to try to dig at other opponents and try to get as much as you can, and then try to figure out what you can about the team. That’s not always easy to do. Similarly, I think they’re in the same boat as well. We don’t have a lot of common opponents or anything like that.”
So, the Huskies have to do the best they can with film. What they’re seeing is a 3-6 North Montgomery team. The Chargers began their season with a 37-29 win over Benton Central, then dropped four in a row. North fell to Owen Valley 30-27, then lost its first three Sagamore Conference games to rival Southmont 34-20, Lebanon 63-27 and Western Boone 56-17.
Since then, the Chargers have alternated wins and losses, beating Crawfordsville 26-0, falling to Tri-West 59-9, defeating Frankfort 35-6, losing to Danville 34-0. North finished 2-5 in Sagamore play.
Street calls North Montgomery a “blue-collar football team” physical team that’s big and strong up front, on both sides of the football. The Chargers’ quarterback is a senior, Collin Knecht. He’s had a decent season, throwing for 1334 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Knecht has also rushed for 10 touchdowns, with 455 yards total. Junior Bryce Claycomb is just ahead of him on the ground with 459 yards. Sophomore Kade Koble has the most receptions with 26.
Hamilton Heights’ Blake Webel is the Huskies’ leading rusher this season with 515 yards and five touchdowns. (File photo)