By Joseph Bell

Record Staff Writer

JOHNSONBURG – Coming off a penalty-rich 42-21 Homecoming loss last Friday against Curwensville (7-1), Johnsonburg (5-3) looks to finish its regular season with a win against Elk County Catholic (6-2) tonight at 7 p.m. at Memorial Field.

Johnsonburg coach Tom Launer, who attended the Elk County-Ridgway game last Saturday, said that, in his opinion, the Crusaders field an excellent defense.

"They do a real good job defending the run, they're tough, and they have a good defensive line. Offensively, they're pretty much a ball-control team and they like to run the football and take advantage of the offensive line and they do a good job running the football," Launer said. "We'll have to stop their run and force them to throw the football because they don't throw the football a whole lot, so we'd like to get them to throw the football."

Elk County Catholic is led by junior quarterback Joe Jacobs.

However, according to Launer, he is not worried about Jacobs as a big pass threat.

"Their biggest play threat is breaking a run for a long play. They just keep pounding, running dives and off tackles and they keep pounding at you and eventually break a big one and we can't allow them to break a big run," Launer said. "As far as a big pass play, that doesn't seem to be a big part of their offense."

But Launer said he recognizes the Crusaders have several different threats on the ground.

"(Sophomore Ricky) Pearsall is a good runner and I think (senior Tom) Marconi runs the ball for them," Launer said. "(Senior) Josh Catalano is their big guy."

However, behind a strong offensive line, Launer said he anticipates an evenly-matched football game.

"We're going to try to establish the line of scrimmage and we still feel we have a good offensive line and we have moved the ball well the past couple games despite the losses," Launer said. "We've still moved the ball well on the ground and we're going to try to move the ball on the ground against Elk County and we're going to try to do the ball-control and take that away from them."

Against the Crusaders' defense, Launer said his team must provide pass-protection for Johnsonburg senior quarterback Ren Yonker.

"I think if we can get protection for Ren, that's what we need," Launer said. "In the last few games, there's been quite a lot of pressure on Ren and if we can get him time to throw, he'll do a good job."

Prior to kickoff, senior members of the Johnsonburg varsity football team, cheerleaders and band will be honored as part of Senior Night.

"It's senior night and we'd really like for the seniors to have a nice send-off because it will be their last game in Johnsonburg," Launer said. "We can't make the top four in the seedings so this will be the last time the seniors play a football game in Johnsonburg so we're really going to try to win it for them."

On the Monday following the team's 42-21 loss against Curwensville, the players and coaching staff convened at Memorial Field in Johnsonburg for a film study session, which Launer said proved to be invaluable.

"With the film study, we were looking at the mistakes we made," Launer said. "We got out to the early lead but made mistakes, mostly holding calls that really hurt us and cost us first downs where we had to punt it away."

Launer said his team was also victimized by several unfortunate penalties.

"We got involved a little bit in the other stuff and some of our kids lost their cool and we pointed that out to them and told them that that can't happen, you have to keep your cool out there, play the game and forget about the other stuff," Launer said. "It's hard to do but we told them that you have to walk away because it's the second guy that always gets penalized. We stressed that and we don't want penalties. That was our eighth game of the year and I think we only had two personal fouls going into the game, a roughing the punter penalty against Kane and I think we had a facemask and no unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. To get three or four in one game, it's not like we have a pattern where we've been playing like that out there on the field and we stressed that to the kids. I don't think we'll see that again. We told the kids to just tell the officials, tell a coach, and walk away and don't let that stuff influence the football game."