Crown Point coach Craig Buzea initially deadpanned when asked about quarterback Noah Ehrlich after their game Friday.
“He’s pretty good,” Buzea said.
That’s one way of putting it. Ehrlich, who is in his first season with the Bulldogs after two outstanding ones at Hobart, completed 16 of 24 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns against Lake Central.
“He made some plays in the run game as well, which we thought would be there,” Buzea noted.
Indeed, Ehrlich ran for two more TDs, a 14-yarder and a 1-yarder, and also had a 40-yard gain on just three carries while leading Crown Point to a 38-12 Duneland Athletic Conference road win in St. John.
“He has the ability to make some things out of nothing,” Buzea said. “When the protection broke down, he was able to do some things that were pretty impressive.”
So?
“He’s still learning our system, but he continues to get better and better each game. … He can do some special things,” Buzea said.
Ehrlich, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound junior with offers from Miami of Ohio and Toledo, did some of those things against Lake Central and has shined as the successor to JJ Johnson. But Ehrlich credited his coaches and teammates after the Bulldogs (4-0, 2-0), who are ranked No. 8 in Class 6A in both the state coaches poll and the poll by The Associated Press, won their 13th straight regular-season game.
“I know I don’t showcase it a lot, but I love running the ball,” he said. “It was good. He called the play, I knew exactly what I needed to read, they gave me the look I wanted, so we took off with it.
“I have to give thanks to my team. I can’t do anything without them. I always tell them, ‘They have my back, I have theirs.’ Just when you get the ball, you have to make plays.”
Ehrlich’s TD passes were a 42-yarder to senior wide receiver Nick Soley and a 16-yarder to senior wide receiver Landen Delich, a Toledo recruit. On the latter, Ehrlich threw a strike while on the run to his right.
“He’s a huge leader,” Delich said of Ehrlich. “As a junior, he’s a huge leader for this team. He’s a great guy. He loves to spend time with us on the field and off the field, and he’s just a hell of a player.”
Delich finished with eight catches for 164 yards. Soley had five catches for 61 yards, and junior running back Larry Ellison continued his breakout season with 140 yards on 24 carries, including a 16-yard TD.
“Noah did amazing,” Delich said. “All of our receivers and running backs, the whole line, did a great job.”
Ehrlich’s family moved shortly before winter break last school year. He was part of Crown Point’s basketball team and played baseball.
“It’s been great,” Ehrlich said. “Buz and the team have been very welcoming. The community has been very welcoming. It’s not hard when you’re playing sports and you’re around these guys every day. It’s fun. It’s been pretty easy on me.”
After three relatively “easy” games, Crown Point faced a challenge Friday. The Indians (2-2, 1-1) scored the first points of the season against the Bulldogs’ No. 1 defense, which had a fumble recovery in the end zone and an interception by sophomore safety Dominic Fantin.
Junior quarterback Chase Kwiatkowski ran hard for 82 yards and a TD on 17 carries for the Indians, who were without Iowa-bound senior running back Xavier Williams. Kwiatkowski also completed 10 of 17 passes for 139 yards, with a 17-yard TD to junior wide receiver Trevor Kubacki on a tipped ball.
“Winning is hard,” Buzea said. “You feel bad about a 30-point win, we’re not going to apologize. But this was great for us, to have to play a whole game. A lot of kids hadn’t done that all year. They’d been out in the first half.
“But give Lake Central a ton of credit. They had their guys ready, and they played hard. They probably played harder than us, and that’s not typical of our teams. But we’ll take it and learn from it and get better.”
Crown Point has won 10 straight games in the series, including two in sectionals, with Lake Central last winning in 2015.
“We know we still have a lot of work to do,” Ehrlich said. “We have a lot of loose ends to tie up. We know we can play a lot better as a team.”
