TERRE HAUTE —
Crawfordsville came into Friday night’s matchup against West Vigo expecting a hardnosed-competitive football game. The Vikings, playing their first game of the season, came out of the gates firing and held a 26-0 lead over the Athenians at halftime. Despite a very strong showing from the Crawfordsville offense in the second half, the Athenians fell to the Vikings 47-26.
“We did do some good things there in that second half, but all in all I’m disappointed with how we played tonight,” Crawfordsville coach Kurt Schlicher said. “There were too many mental errors tonight. We just have to go back and watch the film to see where we can get better. They dominated us early on at the line of scrimmage. Later in the game we started to play better I think because they got a little fatigued but it was a case of too little too late.”
Crawfordsville’s Achilles heel all night long was allowing the Vikings to have chunk play after chunk play. For the game West Vigo totaled 13 plays that went over 10+ yards. Quarterback of the Vikings Kaleb Marrs ended the game 16-22 for 279 yards and three touchdowns. Running back Peyton Clerk went over 100 yards on the ground finishing with 109 yards on 14 carries including a 45-yard score.
The Athenian offense showed flashes of what it can do as right after Crawfordsville (0-2) recorded a safety to make the score 33-10, backup quarterback Ethan Powell threw a 52-yard strike to Evan Chaney. After a successful two-point conversion, Crawfordsville has the score at 33-18.
Senior running back Kaigen Fields showed off his athleticism and speed late in the fourth quarter with a breakaway 53 yard touchdown run.
“Ethan has worked hard all summer and he’s a great kid,” Schlicher said of Powell. “He definitely has a strong arm and going forward we like both Kaiden (Underwood) and Ethan so you may see a two-headed monster with both of them because we saw some things we liked with both guys.”
Offensivley, Crawfordsville totaled 224 yards led by Fields who ended the game with 69 yards on the ground. Zeke Cardenas added another 33 while Powell (51 yards) and Underwood (59 yards) led the Athenian passing attack.
Schlicher knows his teams struggles aren’t due to the lack of effort.
“Moving forward it’s about turning effort into execution,” he said. “Right now that needs to be our biggest area of improvement is we aren’t executing as well as we need to. We simply don’t have enough talent to win if we don’t execute at a high level.”
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Athenians as they will travel to take on the three-time defending state champions in Western Boone to kick off Sagamore Conference play next week.
