Adjustments and mistakes often determine who wins or loses football games and that was the case Friday as Southmont scored 14 second-half points to defeat county rival Crawfordsville 14-10.
After going into the halftime break down 7-0, the Mounties (4-1, 3-0) used the extra time during the Crawfordsville Homecoming break to make some minor adjustments for the second half.
“We felt like we needed to get to the hole faster,” Southmont coach Desson Hannum said. “They (Crawfordsville) were really crashing their linebackers so we wanted to go faster. That’s why we went under center more in the second half. I felt that got us to where we wanted to be a little faster.”
After forcing Crawfordsville to a three-and-out to start the second half, the Mounties went on a 10-play, 54-yard drive using the new wrinkle in the offense and scored on a Kasen Bushong 3-yard run. That drive included an Eli Hannum quarterback run on fourth-and-one to keep the drive alive.
Crawfordsville bounced right back and drove to the Mounties’ 16 before the Southmont defense stiffened and forced Crawfordsville into a 32 yard field goal by Dario Huesca to put the Athenians (2-3, 0-3) back up 10-7 as the third quarter was about to end.
The Mounties went on another long drive to start the fourth quarter, with another new offensive wrinkle. This time the Mounties put senior defensive lineman Diego Castillo in the backfield with Bushong and it worked.
“We gave them a look they hadn’t seen,” Hannum said of putting the lineman in the backfield. “Diego was great. He opened some holes that might not have been there otherwise and Kasen took advantage of that.”
Eight plays later the Mounties scored on a pitch to Neyo Holmes from seven yards out to go up 14-10 with 7:38 to play.
Just like a heavyweight fight, the Athenians came punching back. They took the ball from their own 34 to the Southmont 35 when disaster hit. On a second-and-10 play, Southmont’s Cade Miller stepped into the passing lane and tipped the ball to himself and secured an interception with just under four minutes to play. Southmont was then able to run the clock out and had the ball at the CHS 5 when the game ended.
In the first half, Crawfordsville were the ones who took advantage of a big mistake. After Southmont had punted, a penalty forced the Mounties to kick again. This time the snap went over Miller’s head and he had to retrieve the loose ball in his own end zone. He got it back out to the seven but Crawfordsville took over there. Two plays later Braeden Schlote went into the end zone for the score to put Crawfordsville up 7-0.
It stayed that way until late in the first half when Crawfordsville came knocking on the door again after an electrifying 65 yard run from Eli Lolla-Martinez took the ball to the Southmont 27. A 17-yard pass from Schlote to Johnovan Smith made it first-and-goal from the 10.
Three consecutive penalties on the Athenians made it first-and-goal from the 40 and the drive stalled right before the half.
“Having it first-and-goal at the 10 with a chance to go up two scores right before half and coming away with no points turned out to be a pretty big turn of events in the game,” Crawfordsville coach Brad Clark said. “If we want to beat good teams we can’t beat ourselves with penalties like that.”
Crawfordsville was playing without its top running back Adyn Sempsrott due to medical issues, but Martinez did a great job filling in as he led the Athenians with 121 yards on just 13 carries. Schlote completed 3 of 9 passes for 52 yards, well below his 179 per game he was averaging.
The Mounties relied on their ground game and Bushong was the workhorse, carrying the ball 36 times for 191 yards.
With the win the Mounties defended their County Championship title and extended their winning streak over Crawfordsville to 11 games.
Southmont will entertain North Putnam for homecoming next week, while Crawfordsville will entertain Cascade.
