ROCHELLE — The Hubs varsity football team had no trouble avoiding a potential trap game at Ottawa last season, and the Rochelle boys will be looking to make another dominant stand against the Pirates this year, with Ottawa scheduled to arrive at Rochelle Township High School this Friday for Rochelle’s Homecoming game.

Behind running backs Matt Albers, Alex Harvey and Kaywan Palmer, the Hubs cruised to a 41-0 victory over Ottawa in 2016, compiling 356 rushing yards, 23 first downs and five rushing touchdowns. Things won’t get much easier for the Pirates this year, as Rochelle (2-2) is coming off its strongest offensive performance of the 2017 season after totaling 474 yards of offense against the Morris Redskins last week.

“We were very physical up front and I thought our backs ran really hard,” head coach Kevin Crandall said regarding Rochelle’s offensive outburst at Morris. “We had quite a lot of yards after first contact, and there were some things alignment-wise that they were giving us that helped. But Ottawa has defended us well over the past few years, so we’ve really been working on the things we do well.”

The Hubs averaged 7.4 yards per carry at Ottawa last season, with Harvey accounting for 63 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries. Quarterback Noah Mershon connected on two passes for 59 yards and one score, and Rochelle forced five Pirate turnovers including three fumbles and two interceptions, one by Steven Eychaner and the other by Chris Clark.

“They were down a little bit and I think we had better personnel,” Crandall said. “But I try to stress to our kids that Ottawa is a better football team this year and they’ve gotten better every week, and this could be a trap game for us after coming off of an emotional week… We really try to keep the kids focused on getting better and playing with the same intensity on Friday that we played with over the last four weeks.”

While the Rochelle offense didn’t encounter many obstacles moving the football against Morris, the Redskins made the Hubs pay on several offensive plays as well. Morris accumulated 34 points on 350 yards of offense, and even though the Pirates were shut out in last year’s matchup, Crandall said he will be looking for a strong bounce-back performance from his defense this week.

“We gave up a few big plays and one of their scores was set up by a turnover,” Crandall said. “Considering all the offensive weapons Morris has, I didn’t think we played very bad defensively. Unfortunately, they made a couple of big plays in the passing game, and those have been our nemesis so far this year.”

Another area the Rochelle defense hasn’t made much noise is creating turnovers. The Hubs have blocked four kicks this year including three extra points and one punt, but the purple and white have mustered just three sacks, one interception and zero fumble recoveries. With a turnover-prone Ottawa squad coming to town, Crandall said the Rochelle defense can help its offense by forcing the ball out of the Pirates’ hands.

“We work on it a lot,” Crandall said. “I think it would be helpful to get some pressure on the quarterback so we can take some of the pressure off of our secondary. We’ll probably blitz a little bit so hopefully that will help.”