Wawasee’s Jesse Landeros stuffs Lakeland’s Bailey Schlabach during Friday night’s 28-7 Lakeland win. (Photos by Mike Deak)

LAGRANGE – At last week’s jamboree against NorthWood and Northridge, Lakeland wasn’t trying to fool anyone. Sticking to the run majority of the time, the Lakers were showing their cards that their bread and butter will be on the ground this year.

Friday night proved that.

Lakeland rolled up 406 yards of offense – 370 of which was on the ground – and got seemingly all the key plays to go its way in a 28-7 win over Wawasee in the season opener.

Wawasee’s Gabe Moore works in space.

A long run on its opening series by Austin Collins set up Lakeland right away, to which Adam Kreider kept the momentum going downhill with a pair of tough runs inside the Wawasee 10, the second of which was for six yards and a touchdown. Collins ran in the two-point conversion and it was 8-0 barely five minutes into the game.

A missed field goal by Brayden Johnson gave Lakeland the ball back at the end of the first quarter, and again Lakeland pounded it right down the field. Kreider capped his second score from two yards out, which is how the game would stay heading into the half at 14-0.

“You look at a first game and sometimes you don’t know what you are going to see,” said Wawasee head coach Mike Eshbach, noting scrimmage speed a week ago was much different to Friday night. “We didn’t adjust to the speed, to the physicality. They punished us with the run. We did have some guys out there who aren’t used to Friday night lights, but that is going to have to change.”

Lakeland would look very impressive on a 97-yard scoring drive, almost exclusively via the run. Krieder again pounded the rock in from two yards out, and his two-point conversion put the Lakers up by a commanding 22-0 tally.

Krieder, who ended with 161 yards rushing on the night, also had a very key late conversion. After Wawasee cut the lead to 22-7 on a 15-yard pitch and catch from Evan Eshbach to Dylan Hepler, the Lakers were facing third and long on Wawasee’s 23. Number 34 got the call once again, and broke off a 14-yard run to the Wawasee nine, which essentially iced the game. Gage Paulus made it academic with a two-yard sneak for the final score of the game.

“I can’t point the finger at one thing and say that’s the reason they beat us,” Eshbach said. “We need to block better. We need to line up in the right spots and substitute properly. We didn’t tackle well in the open field. We need to throw better passes and catch balls that are near us. It wasn’t just one or two things tonight, we just made too many mistakes on both sides of the ball.”

Wawasee’s Keyan Peete lunges for extra yards.

For all the success Lakeland found in its running game, Wawasee couldn’t catch a break.

Johnson’s missed kick turned into six points the other way, and after Keyan Peete recovered a Lakeland fumble, a bad snap on third down turned into a fumble recovery for Lakeland’s Jayce Riegling to snuff a promising Warrior drive.

Wawasee’s opening possession of the second half also ended on bad fortunes, as Hepler looked like he made a tightrope catch on the edge of the endzone, but was ruled out of bounds on the fourth down play. Wawasee also missed on several deep attempts in the air from Eshbach, who was in his first game since last August when he injured his knee at West Noble.

“Evan looked good in the summer in seven-on-sevens and 11-on-11s, but you hope that preparation gets you to tonight,” Eshbach said of Evan’s return. “There isn’t anything that prepares you for this. The speed, the decision making. He was a sophomore last year and when you play a game-and-a-half and then is out, he comes back as a sophomore for the most part. He made a couple nice plays tonight and he certainly missed a couple.”

Eshbach was 12-28 for 151 yards in his return while Jesse Landeros led the team with 63 rushing yards and Hepler had 64 receiving yards. Steven Hauntz added four catches for 55 yards.

Hepler, Levi Brown and Parker Young all made seven solo stops for the Warrior defense. The night was not totally a wash for Johnson, who averaged 60.5 yards on two punts, both downed inside the five-yard-line.

Wawasee (0-1) will take on West Noble next week in its home opener. The Chargers beat Central Noble, 14-12, in Ligonier.

Steven Hauntz finds daylight in the Lakeland secondary.