Anyone who says they saw that coming is a liar!

The Chesterton football team dominated play for 48 minutes Friday night and blasted arch-rival Valparaiso 48-14 to remain undefeated.

“I love taking the field with this team,” Chesterton coach John Snyder said. “When I walked out on the field with them and looked and saw our huge crowd going crazy, I remembered when I came to Chesterton and nobody was in the stands.

“This is great for our community and our kids. I’m excited. They’re excited.”

That excitement showed up early as the Trojans took the opening kickoff and took just four plays and 1:10 off the clock to get a 7-0 lead.

Chesterton’s Joe Troop got behind the Valparaiso defense and quarterback Chris Katsafaros hit him in stride for a 69-yard touchdown. Nate Needham’s point-after-touchdown built an early lead.

After the team’s traded possessions, the defense got into the act as Julian Raudry stripped Valparaiso running back Andrew Kittridge of the ball and returned it 29 yards for a touchdown and 14-0 lead.

“We hit the big pass play to Troop and that ignited everything,” Snyder said. “The defense gets the fumble and returns it for six and that gets you going.”

The Trojan defense forced another punt and this time Katsafaros engineered a 14-play, 84-yard drive that culminated in the senior quarterback running across the goal line from seven yards out.

The lead would grow to 28-0 at halftime as Katsafaros and Troop hooked up again, this time from 22 yards out with just 2:57 to play in the half.

Katsafaros would finish the night 16-of-20 through the air for 205 yards and three touchdowns. He also carried the ball 18 times for 63 yards and a touchdown.

“When you watch Chris, he’s always stepped up to a challenge,” Snyder said. “He was ready to meet it tonight and he played great.”

The Chesterton defense held Valparaiso to just 31 yards passing and five yards rushing in the first half and continued to dominate the field as Andrew Ralph picked off a David Hittinger pass just 21 seconds into the third quarter.

“Unbelievable,” Snyder said of the Trojan defense. “The defense wasn’t happy with how they played last week. They were more prepared than any group of kids I’ve ever seen tonight.”

Katsafaros took immediate advantage with a 27-yard touchdown strike to Jacob Andrews for a 35-0 lead.

“When you get to this point in the season, you’ve seen so much film on everybody that you really have to prepare for everything,” Snyder said. “They’ve done a number of things, so we just took what they gave us. We feel we have the skill and size on the perimeter to do some nice things.”

The final two scores by the Trojans came on a 67-yard run by Troop and an 11-yard run from Mike Crowley.

“Valpo brings out the best in our kids and hopefully Portage, LC, Crown Point and Merrillville do too,” Snyder said. “I think we showed what this team is capable of and that everybody is ok with saying we got rid of the creampuff’s.”

On the night, Chesterton racked up 406 yards of total offense. Troop led the ground attack with 77 yards on three carries, while also catching eight passes for 129 yards.

Defensively, the Trojans limited Valparaiso to just 130 yards total offense with just 42 yards rushing and 88 yards passing.

“Valpo played the No. 1 team in the State to 21-20 and probably should have won,” Snyder said. “They lost by seven to Penn who’s ranked in the top 10. How good are we? I don’t know.”

Chesterton celebrates Homecoming next Friday night when they host the Portage Indians with kickoff set for 7 p.m.

“We were at this point last year and had a letdown and got beat by Portage,” Snyder said. “We’ve already talked about it.”

First Downs 21 7

Rushes-yards 35-193 28-42

Passing yards 213 88

Comp-Att-Int 17-21-1 12-20-1

Total Yards 406 130

Penalties-yards 5-45 5-48

Punts-avg. 1-46.0 6-28.8

Fumbles-lost 3-1 1-1

Chesterton 14 14 13 7 -- 48

Valparaiso 0 0 7 7 -- 14

C -- Joe Troop 69 pass from Chris Katsafaros (Nate Needham kick)

C -- Julian Raudry 29 fumble return (Needham kick)

C -- Katsafaros 7 run (Needham kick)

C -- Troop 22 pass from Katsafaros (Needham kick)

C -- Jacob Andrews 27 pass from Katsafaros (Needham kick)

V -- CJ Gear 56 interception return (Caleb Dawson kick)

C -- Troop 67 run (kick failed)

V -- Mark Johnson 3 run (Dawson kick)

C -- Mike Crowley 11 run (Chris Pabon kick)

The Chesterton junior varsity improved to 4-1 on the year with a 20-0 victory over Valparaiso on Saturday.

The Trojan defense continued its dominating play with the shutout and also scored point on a Jaycee Jensen fumble recovery for a touchdown.

The offense added two scores with a pass from Dax Jones to Steve Stachyra in the first half and a long TD run by Tyler Gillespie in the second half.

The Chesterton freshman just couldn’t get the stop they needed and dropped a 44-33 decision to LaPorte last Thursday.

Niles Dilosa scored the game’s first touchdown from three yards out to put the Trojans on top 7-0 early.

LaPorte answered with three first half touchdowns for a 21-7 lead and then added another to start the third quarter before Chesterton started on the comeback trail.

Logan Hofferth scored from the three-yard line and Garrett Slatcoff hit Rhys Lewis from nine-yards out for a touchdown pass to cut the lead to 27-19.

After a Slicer touchdown, Slatcoff hit Dilosa on a six-yard pass for a TD and Slatcoff scored on his own four-yard run. Sam Tilden’s point-after-touchdown set the final score.

Defensively, Luke Finke and Armando Millard played well for the Trojans.

In the fifth quarter, Caleb McEuen scored on a 70-yard touchdown run and Chris Kaptur caught two passes for 45 yards. Slatcoff hit Marlin Williams with a 22-yard reception as well.

Posted 9/17/2012