Indianapolis Brebeuf’s high-profile offense was on full display in the second quarter of a 35-8 IHSAA Class 3A Sectional No. 28 second round Braves win over North Montgomery on Friday.
Played at a neutral-site in Crawfordsville’s artificial turf field, a wet field did little to slow the No. 2 ranked Braves down as they scored four touchdowns in the final 7:27 of the second quarter to go ahead 35-0 at the half.
Jack Maiers had a 16-yard touchdown run, Anthony Annee a 75-yard touchdown catch from Nolan Buckman, a 32-yard TD pass from Buckman to Max Walters and a 5-yard run from Clark Sweet.
“The thing that stuck out to me tonight was their speed,” North Montgomery coach Josh Thompson said.
After Buckman found Annee for a 12-yard touchdown on the opening drive, North Montgomery found success on its first two offensive drives, moving the ball into Brebeuf territory before the drives stalled.
“We tried some different things this week and took our shots,” Thompson said. “We tried a half-back pass, and had something else in that we didn’t get a chance to run, but we were trying to take advantage of things that we could, but unfortunately couldn’t get the ball in the end zone.
North Montgomery picked up just eight first downs and totaled 129 yards in the loss. Ross Dyson led the way with 71 passing yards and 39 rushing yards. He scored the Chargers’ lone touchdown late in the fourth quarter on a 7-yard run and found senior receiver Gabe Laws five times for 52 yards.
Brebeuf racked up 390 yards of offense, including 235 passing yards from Buckman. The junior found Walters for 86 yards on six receptions. The senior receiving surpassed the 1,000-yard mark on the season. Annee led the way with five catches for 116 yards and now has 16 touchdown catches.
Brebeuf improves to 9-2 and will host Western Boone for the sectional title next Friday.
North Montgomery’s season closes at 4-5 as they graduate seniors Donavan Haworth, Ethan Gayler, Gabe Laws, Ben Cody, Nick Norman, Wil Campbell, Benjamin Pietsch, Carter Livingston and Jamyson Roche.
“They mean a lot to this program,” Thompson said of the nine seniors. “Throughout four years, they put a lot of time in. And it’s hard for people to understand what that is, but we spend a lot of time with them. We have seen them almost every day of the week since May. They mean a lot, and this class has been pretty dedicated as a group. They weren’t really ones we had to worry about, they understood the routine and did it, and just their leadership out here — we had different things throughout the season where different guys stepped up at different times and that’s what you’ve got to have out of your seniors, and it’s really hard to say how much they mean.”
