Tuesday, Oct. 07, 2008

Surging Highland has won four straight after two early losses

HIGHLAND -- The film Highland High's football team watched on the morning of Sept. 6 wasn't rated R or NC-17, but it should have included this warning:

"Graphic material forthcoming. May be inappropriate for children. Keep barf bags handy."

"It was disgusting," said Highland senior quarterback Travis Becherer.

The film in question wasn't the latest Hollywood slasher flick, but a replay of Highland's 22-6 loss to Marion the previous evening. It was the Bulldogs' second straight loss to start the season and followed the same script as their opening defeat, a 28-6 beatdown at Belleville West.

"We sat down on that Saturday morning and we watched that film and we were all just disgusted with ourselves and what we were watching," Becherer said. "That's when the coaches said, 'Let's have a talk time. Let's get everything off minds.' We had a lot of stuff on our chests."

The Bulldogs aired out their grievances and the coaches called out several players, most notably, the 16 seniors on Highland's roster.

They challenged them to play better, and the message resonated. The Bulldogs (4-2) haven't lost since that talk, winning four straight heading into Friday's Mississippi Valley Conference showdown with neighboring Triad (4-2).

Highland and Triad are tied atop the MVC with 3-0 records, so the game will decide the league champion and give the victor an automatic playoff bid. It's quite a turnaround for the Bulldogs, who were basically caught in a must-win situation after starting 0-2.

"These last few weeks, they've just gone out there and played their hearts out," said Highland coach Ron Holt. "They've been playing with a lot of passion and a lot of pride lately. They've played the way we thought they would at the beginning of the year."

Holt and his coaching staff were taken aback by the poor start of the Bulldogs, who were outscored 50-12 by Belleville West and Marion and looked listless doing it.

Things came to a head during the viewing of the Marion loss, a game where the Bulldogs managed just 189 yards of offense.

"There wasn't a lot of yelling at all," Becherer said. "It was almost a depressed kind of thing. We were just down. We scored six points on offense in both games. We weren't happy. Everybody was in a quiet mood. One more loss and we were pretty much done for."

A three-year starter, Becherer was the first senior to speak at what amounted to an intervention.

"What I said in the meeting was I'm 17 years old and this is supposed to be the best years of my life and right now, this is the worst time in my life. We're losing football games and it's just not fun," Becherer said. "After that, we started to realize that we didn't want our season to be over in the first three games of the season.

"We wanted to make the playoffs and make some noise. We've been rolling ever since."

The turnaround started with a 48-0 shutout at Centralia. Highland opened MVC play with an eye-popping 40-7 rout of Mascoutah, followed by a 49-7 thumping of Waterloo. Last week, the Bulldogs grabbed a 34-9 lead against Civic Memorial before winning 34-21.

They've averaged 42 points a game during the winning streak, which has been predicated on an old Highland standby made popular during the Billy Greenwald era of the late 1980s -- a power running attack.

"We have a big offensive line, so we told the kids we're not going to get fancy anymore," Holt said. "We're just going to pound people. We don't have a Billy Greenwald, but that's what we've done."

The Bulldogs have five running backs who have strikingly similar statistics: All five have between 35 and 45 carries and have rushed for at least 220 yards.

Leading the way is sophomore Michael Buehne (36 carries, 335 yards), followed by Becherer (39 carries, 315 yards), seniors Hudson Seegers (47 carries, 271 yards) and Bobby Ostrander (37 carries, 237 yards), and junior Dale Korte (45 carries, 222 yards).

"We don't have one guy that stands out in that backfield," Holt said. "They're all pretty good and they all bring different qualities. They all have different things they bring to the table and they're all pretty good."

Operating behind an offensive line that includes senior left tackle Keith Lane (6-foot-5, 240 pounds), senior guard Blake Manville (6-0, 190), senior center Ethan Shimer (5-11, 245 pounds), junior right guard Jacob Minney (6-0, 262), and senior tackles Cody Conner (6-3, 245) and Justin Wolf (6-0, 220), the Bulldogs ran for 352 yards and had the ball for 34 of the game's 48 minutes against Mascoutah.

Holt said the Highland offensive coordinator Jim Warnecke doesn't favor one running back over another.

"Whatever guy has the hot hand, that's who we kind of go with more," Holt said. "I can tell you this: I'm sure (teams) don't know who to zero in on."

Becherer, a big-time baseball recruit, said the Mascoutah victory served as a clear sign to the Bulldogs that they were underachieving in the first two games.

"That's when we knew we had something special here," said Becherer, who has completed 44-of-70 pass attempts for 710 yards and eight touchdowns. "We've had that confidence ever since."

Which, in turn, makes Saturday-morning film sessions a lot more enjoyable to watch.

Contact reporter Rod Kloeckner at rkloeckner@bnd.com or 239-2663.