By CRAIG ADKINS
For The Reporter
NOBLESVILLE – The Friday night lights shined down at Guerin Catholic for the first time in 2025. The Golden Eagles hosted Class 2A power Indianapolis Lutheran Saints in a preseason scrimmage to get tuned up for the regular season.
The scrimmage, originally scheduled for 7 p.m., was delayed until 7:40 p.m. A Lutheran fan required medical attention from the first responders on site at Guerin. She would be taken to Riverview Hospital. A Saints cheerleader was also taken to the hospital by ambulance prior to the start.
From 2006-11, Guerin played a series against Lutheran and went 1-5 in those games under the first two coaches in program history, Mark Weller and Andrew Kremer.
The Saints have been impressive over the last decade-plus, at least reaching the semi-state nine times and won three consecutive 1A state crowns (2021-23), bumping them up to 2A in 2024. Overall, 18th-year head coach Dave Pasch has the winning formula down pat at Lutheran, going 163-55 in his first 17 seasons. Pasch is 228-112 is 28 years with his previous stop at North Putnam (1997-2007).
Lutheran also plays up in four of its nine regular season games. The Saints open the first three games hosting Crispus Attucks (4A), visit New Albany (5A) and Western (3A). Their Indiana Crossroads Conference games extend weeks 4-8 against Scecina, Cardinal Ritter, Covenant Christian, Greenwood Christian and Heritage Christian. The Saints close the regular season at home against McCutcheon.
Obviously, this game doesn’t count as far as records, but there are reasons why you schedule a scrimmage with a team like Lutheran.
“Oh, they’re great. They do a great job, Coach Pasch and staff,” said Guerin Catholic head coach Tom Dilley. “They have tradition and good players, good coaches. It’s nice to go up against somebody like that who’s going to be fundamentally sound and you can get a decent gauge on what you are. That’s a nice matchup for a scrimmage.”
Dilley is now in his 12th season as head coach of the Golden Eagles (70-51). Prior to coming to Guerin, Dilley was at Lawrence North (2003-12) where he was 45-61 and Bishop Chatard going 35-16 from 1999-2002, winning back-to-back 3A state titles for the Trojans in 2001 and 2002.
Offensively, Guerin will look to senior quarterback Quentin Klee. He’ll be joined in the backfield by fellow senior and 3A all-state candidate, running back Jack Linden. Junior Aidan Horn and senior Trevor Macey are Klee’s top returning targets. Sophomore Kolbe Klee will also see significant time on offense.
“Quentin will be our starting quarterback. Overall, everything was just way too sloppy tonight,” continued Dilley. “We had a couple of guys that didn’t even dress tonight and we didn’t even use Jack (Linden), but we’re certainly going to. We have a decent amount of receivers that we feel can do some things. There are a couple in the tight end world that give us a little flexibility. We feel like Jack is one of the best backs in the state in 3A football and we’ve got a couple of good guys behind him, too.”
Defensively, the Guerin has a lot of new personnel out there, but also has some good experience in the defensive backfield.
“The experience is mostly in the back end. Just like on offense, we feel we have some really good players back there, but we’ve got some holes to fill in the front and we’re playing a little bit different scheme than last year. That will take some time, but we’d like to be a little more aggressive than we were tonight,” Dilley added.
The Golden Eagles play a highly competitive schedule, beginning at McCutcheon on Aug. 22 and closing August with their home opener against Pendleton Heights on Aug. 29.
September appears to be the toughest on paper. Road trips to Heritage Christian and Brebeuf Jesuit start the month and then they have two home dates in a row with arguably the tougher matchups on the schedule with Roncalli and Bishop Chatard.
October shows no mercy with a visit to Pike (6A) along with home games against Culver Academies and Lafayette Central Catholic.