Crawfordsville’s football season came to an end with a 55-14 loss to Cascade in the first round of the 3A Sectional 29 tournament.
The Athenians managed one touchdown in the second and fourth quarters, but that was no match for the offensive firepower shown by the Cadets, ranked #4, who move to 10-0 on the season.
“Cascade has weapons all over the field,” Crawfordsville Coach Brad Clark said. “On top of that, their tempo is so fast, and that is so difficult to replicate in practice. It is a deadly combination.”
The Cadets scored on their first five possessions, and used big plays to accumulate 526 total yards. They scored on their second play of the game, and had six scoring drives that lasted less than five plays.”
“They have lots of good athletes and they have a good system,” Clark said. “Hats off to them. They execute at a high level.”
The early deficit made things difficult for the Athenians offensively, as the Cadets just charged the line of scrimmage.
The home team got on the board in the second quarter when Mason McCarty capped off a 14 play, 65-yard drive with a swing pass to Landon Gerold. The sophomore wideout broke a tackle or two and worked his way into the end zone. It was Gerold’s fifth TD of the season, after a pair last week at Frankfort. The play went 24 yards.
The other Crawfordsville TD came in the fourth quarter after recovering a Cascade fumble.
On fourth down, McCarty faced a blitz down and got a pass away just in time. It found Maddox Ronco 25 yards downfield and at the edge of the end zone, and Ronco had his first receiving TD of the season.
McCarty was 15-of-23 for the game, throwing for 108 yards and the two scores. The junior finished with eight touchdowns on the season. Ronco had 11 catches for 50 yards and the score . Braeden Hites led the rushing attack for the Athenians, picking up 26 yards on 9 carries.
The loss also spelled the end of football careers for five Crawfordsville seniors.
“We had a really small senior class,” Clark noted, “so that meant a lot of underclassmen played a lot of downs, and this team took a lot of positive steps forward. I’m really proud of the many things they did, and the seniors led the way.”
“These seniors did so much,” he continued. “We lost Anthony Lee early in the season, and we had our defensive leader Keegan Cokel go out in the second half tonight. “Hites ran the ball hard, Sam Minnette did so many things, as did Noah Marlar. They led our program. They have helped push the program to higher levels.”
Clark was looking to the future as well.
“There is the weightlifting that goes on all year,” he said, “but I preach multisport athletes here. I really hope the guys will play basketball, wrestle or swim this winter and go into the spring. We can get back into the X’s and O’s next summer. We have really good middle school coaches in place, led by Danny Pierce, and our youth programs have good coaches in place and we have good numbers. Good things have happened and now we need to work to take the next steps.”
The Cadets had three runners over 100 yards rushing, and finished with 394 rush yards. Quarterback Brady Trebly passed for 132 yards and three TDs.
They will move on the in the 3A sectional and face Tri-West next Friday.
