[johnnd05]

From a preview of his team's game this week:

St. Edward (0-4, 0-2) at Marian Central (4-0, 2-0)

When: 7:30 p.m. today at George Harding Field

Outlook: It will be a monumental upset if St. Edward snaps its 24-game losing streak against the Hurricanes, the No. 1 team in Class 5A, but these hard-working players from St. Edwrd aren't as easy to knock off as they were a year ago. The Green Wave is winless, but three of those losses have come by 8 combined points. It would be very easy for Marian Central to look past this game based on last year's result alone. "I hope they look at last year's score and think this is last year's team," St. Edward coach Mike Rolando said. "Our kids have confidence they can play with teams. The last couple of years it was more a deer-in-the-headlights thing, but now they know they're a good team. Our kids feel they can play with them. They still feel they haven't shown how good they are and they're smart enough to know we're better than our record shows. We've been one play away from beating three teams. We have to wear their big boys down and use our size and speed to our advantage." Wear Marian's big boys down? Consider this: Marian dressed 22 players last weekend at Marmion. St. Edward's roster consists of 26 players. However, none of those players is of the caliber of Marian offensive tackle Sean Cwynar (6-4, 284), who is verbally committed to Notre Dame. He paves the way for Marian running back T.J. Pappas, who has 272 yards and 4 touchdowns. Hurricanes quarterback Jon Budmayr will miss this game with an injury. His understudy is junior Andy Stochl, who presents his own problems. "In my opinion (Stochl) is a better runner than Budmayr," Rolando said. "And he can throw the ball 60 yards in the air."