Preparations began on Monday for the 38th annual Ken Lantzy Finest 40 All-Star Football Game as the squads from the North and South started practices at the Pitt-Johnstown campus.

The game, which is set to be played at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, will be held at Greater Johnstown High School’s Trojan Stadium.

North Star head coach Stacy Schmitt is at the helm for the South squad. It’s Schmitt’s first time as a Lantzy coach, and he started at the top.

“I think it’s great to be here,” Schmitt said prior to the team’s second practice session on Monday. “You’re coaching kids that were rivals against you and that you heard about or played against and now that they’re here as part of the team, it’s fun. But it’s only been five hours in.”

Just as their North counterparts, Schmitt and his coaches have been putting their troops through drills. The Lantzy game is dictated by some specific rules, including the defensive alignments that the team’s are allowed to use.

“You have to run a 5-2 defense and they pretty much give the alignment of your defensive linemen so you don’t have a lot of flexibility in that respect,” Schmitt said. “Even as far as rushing the quarterback, you’re limited what you can do. We’re trying to get the kids used to playing under those restraints and making the best of their natural talents. We’re going to try to throw a few different wrinkles in. With the talent level we have on defense, I think we should be pretty effective. There’s a lot of depth to the secondary and the defensive line.”

Richland’s Ryan Krouse, who heads to UPJ in the fall to wrestle for coach Pat Pecora, is one of the South linemen for the Lantzy game.

“I expected it to be a good time and a good experience for everybody on the team, to meet some new people, have some fun and play one last game before I went to school,” Krouse said. “It’s a good group of kids here. Everybody is working pretty hard to try to get the team together so we can have a good showing on Saturday night.”

The other South linemen are North Star’s Shad Nair, Chestnut Ridge’s Scott Dull, Windber’s Jon Ferensic, Bishop McCort’s Shawn James, Ferndale’s Mike Blue, Laurel Valley’s Derek Ludwig, United’s Eric Skedel, Everett’s Josh Bolyard and Justin Gearhart and Saltsburg’s Brannon Pate.

The linebackers include Mike Burkholder of Meyersdale, Kevin Cassatt of United and Jon Cotchen of Ligonier Valley.

“We have 40 of the best players on each team from everywhere and there is some top-of-the-line talent here,” South defensive coordinator Erik Foust of Laurel Valley said. “There are some real strong secondary players, some nice linebackers and some real talented guys up front, too.

“Right now, we’re just trying to get guys to feel welcome and feel comfortable and get into the flow and get accustomed to how things should run. I think a lot of them came in here in good shape.”

Ligonier Valley’s Brandon Boyd was one of the area’s top cornerbacks and has been impressed by what he has seen so far.

“We’ve got a lot of talent back there (in the secondary) and I think we look pretty good,” the Mounties player said. “It’s nice to finally meet some of the kids that you’ve read about in the paper and get to know them. It’s tough, it feels like Day 1 of that first day you ever played. This is just another football game, but it’s the last one, so you’ve got to leave it all out there on Saturday.”

The other corners are Johnstown’s Will Harris, Laurel Valley’s Myers Miller and Richland’s Marco Pecora. The safeties are Berlin’s Miles Walker and Conemaugh Township’s Blake Zaman.

“It’s pretty early to tell, but we have a lot of talent here, whether or not we can pull it all together by Saturday, that’s yet to be seen,” Schmitt said. “But I’m sure the North squad, from what I can see going down their roster, and their coaching staff, they have a lot of talent and experience also. It should be a pretty interesting battle come Saturday.”