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Phil Anastasia: They’ll be feeding off LaPierre’s success

Shawnee’s back takes care of his line, and vice versa.

Shawnee's Chris LaPierre picks up yardage against Cherokee on Sept. 12. His next touchdown will make him the state's all-time TD scorer for one season, with 41. He is also just six points away from the state record for most points in a season, 254.
Shawnee's Chris LaPierre picks up yardage against Cherokee on Sept. 12. His next touchdown will make him the state's all-time TD scorer for one season, with 41. He is also just six points away from the state record for most points in a season, 254.Read moreSHARON GEKOSKI-KIMMEL / Staff Photographer

Sometime tonight, Shawnee senior Chris LaPierre likely will set the state record for points in a football season.

Dylan Petkus and Ethan Lechner will be happy. They might be hungry, too.

Sometime tonight, LaPierre likely will set the state record for touchdowns in a season.

Reece Johnston and Adam Cella will celebrate. They also might salivate.

Sometime tonight, LaPierre likely will finish the most accomplished season by a running back in state history.

Steve Scheffler will thrust his fist in the air. He also might tuck a napkin under his chin.

Petkus, Lechner, Johnston, Cella and Scheffler form the Shawnee offensive line. They take care of LaPierre.

He takes care of them, too. With taps on the helmet, pats on the back, and shout-outs in postgame quotes that appear in the next day's newspaper.

He takes care of them in another way, as well: by hosting an annual postseason steak dinner for the big guys up front as well as the Shawnee coaches.

"Best meal you'll ever see," Shawnee coach Tim Gushue said the other day as the undefeated Renegades, the No. 1 team in The Inquirer Top 10, prepared for tonight's South Jersey Group 3 championship game against Hammonton.

LaPierre and his family hosted the dinner after the athlete's sophomore and junior seasons. But as good as LaPierre was during those days, the 6-foot-2, 214-pound tailback has put together a season for the ages in 2008.

The guys up front are thinking that means a meal for the ages as well.

"I know he's going to take care of us," Petkus said.

Like most offensive lines, the Shawnee five operate mostly in the shadows. But LaPierre's remarkable accomplishments have put the spotlight on his blockers.

LaPierre has 40 touchdowns, tied for the state record set by Netcong's John Gianantonio in 1950 and matched in 2004 by Middletown South's Knowshon Moreno, now a star at the University of Georgia.

LaPierre also has 248 points. The state record is 254, set by New Providence's Ted Blackwell in 1976.

"Everything that we accomplish, we accomplish as a team," Cella said. "Chris is grateful for everything that we do. He always gives us credit."

Petkus said the offensive linemen feel a sense of accomplishment every time LaPierre scores a touchdown - or even makes a first down.

"We take a lot of pride in everything that Chris does or any of the backs do," Petkus said. "We know it starts up front with us. We don't have any individual stars. We're a unit."

Johnson, the lone junior in the group, said the best offensive lines are known collectively, rather than individually.

"You know it's a good offensive line if people know you as a group rather than saying this player or that player," Johnston said.

The Shawnee offensive line is big and strong. They know how to block. They also are smart.

Scheffler was late for practice Wednesday because he had to take a Latin test. Cella is the president of the National Honor Society. Gushue thinks Petkus will go to medical school after college. Lechner and Johnston are top students, too.

"They are five tremendous young men," Gushue said. "They are role models for the whole school. You tell these guys something, you don't have to tell them twice."

OK, so they are big and strong and smart. They also like to eat.

That's why they might take a brief moment tonight to consider one ramification of LaPierre's spectacular season.

"I'm not eating lunch that day," Johnston said in anticipation of a meal that will be well-done in more ways than one.