Craig Pearson
The Tribune-Star
CAYUGA —
North Vermillion’s no-huddle spread offense wasted no time getting to work Friday night during a 62-27 high school football victory against rival South Vermillion. The Falcons not only had five touchdowns less than five minutes into the game, they scored two of those — and three in the game — on the first play of a drive.
North Vermillion quarterback Brayden Woodard hit Wade Harrison to cap a 5-play, 61-yard drive by the host Falcons after just 62 ticks of the clock.
South Vermillion answered quickly as Daniel Shew caught a 47-yard strike from Adam Crouch. North Vermillion had an even faster response; Kody Zumwalt took the ball 62 yards through the middle of the South Vermillion defense for one of his four touchdowns on the night.
Zumwalt had 281 of the Falcons’ 557 rushing yards Friday night.
“We love coach Crabtree’s offense, and we’re very happy for him to be here at North Vermillion with us,” Zumwalt said. “The great thing about it is anybody can have a big night. The offensive line returning just did amazing blocking, they’ve been working their butts off in practice and getting better … It’s been great so far.”
South Vermillion continued to make it appear they could make it a game early.
Shaw went up the middle of the field following the wedge blocking by the Wildcats for a 70-yard kickoff return. After running a couple plays, Woodard went 32 yards for a 21-13 Falcons lead.
North Vermillion’s Harrison then came up with the ball near the sideline on a bouncing kickoff by Adam Scott.
Woodard sprinted 34 yards on the first play of scrimmage for a 27-13 lead with 7:27 on the first-quarter clock.
That play by the 175-pound junior signal caller concluded a span of one minute, 16 seconds with five touchdowns between the two teams.
Crabtree said his offense took advantage of what the Wildcats were giving them.
“The inside zone was pretty good. The cool thing about our offense is it allows us to look at how the defense sets up and then call the play,” Crabtree said. “We get aligned and call what we want to attack that defensive line. The kids did a good job of rolling with it tonight and just playing with great tempo.”
The defenders of both teams regained focus after the early onslaught, the next score coming on a nine-yard run by Zumwalt with 26 seconds left in the first quarter.
But the Falcons’ 35-point first quarter was too much to overcome for the Wildcats.
Shew’s big plays and the occasional slippery running of Adam Crouch, who also tossed for 139 yards, were not enough to overcome North Vermillion’s attack.
“He’s a playmaker for us,” South Vermillion coach Chuck Sorrell said of Shew. “[But] I did not want to get in that track meet with them, and we did early. They’re too good of an offense to get in a track meet, we just have to pound and tackle a lot better than we did.
South Vermillion maintains reasons for optimism in Sorrell’s second year as head coach. The Wildcats were without perhaps their best offensive lineman, 305-pound Matt Musall, in the first half Friday night for disciplinary reasons.
The defense will have to play much better though, Sorrell said.
“We’re not going to be that team that’s going to be 1-9 this year. We’re going to get some wins. We’ll keep playing hard,” Sorrell said.
North Vermillion 62,
South Vermillion 27
South Vermillion 13 0 0 14 — 27
North Vermillion 35 21 7 0 — 62
NV — Wade Harrison 20 pass from Brayden Woodard (Adam Scott kick), 10:58 1Q
SV — Daniel Shew 47 pass from Adam Crouch (Shew kick), 8:43 1Q
NV — Kody Zumwalt 62 run (Scott kick), 8:30 1Q
SV — Shew 70 kickoff return (kick failed), 8:16 1Q
NV — Woodard 32 run (Scott kick), 7:36 1Q
NV — Woodard 34 run (Scott kick), 7:27 1Q
NV — Zumwalt 9 run (Scott kick), 0:26 1Q
NV — Ethan Lee 55 pass from Woodard (Scott kick), 11:10 2Q
NV — Woodard 43 run (Scott kick), 6:25 2Q
NV — Zumwalt 1 run (Scott kick), 3:13 2Q
SV — Del Dunegan 48 run (Shew kick), 11:24 4Q
SV — Spivey 36 pass from Crouch (Shew kick), 1:09 4Q
NV — Zumwalt 70 run (Scott kick), 9:22 3Q
SV NV
First downs 7 10
Rushes-yards 33-110 41-557
Passing yards 139 113
Comp-Att-Int 5-6-0 6-9-0
Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-0
Penalties-yards 3-15 7-75
Punts-avg 5-27.2 1-27.0
Return yards 0 0
Individual statistics
Rushing — SV: Del Dunegan 2-66, Adam Crouch 18-27, Tanner Akers 7-26, Evan Piper 1-1. NV: Kody Zumwalt 14-182, Brayden Woodard 9-161, Jacob Earl 10-92, Cody Wright 6-12, Ethan Lee 1-8, Alex Certain 1-3.
Passing — SV: Crouch 5-6-0 139 yards. NV: Woodard 5-8-0 117, Wright 1-1-0 (-4).
Receiving — SV: Daniel Shew 3-85, Michael Gurney 1-18, Tristan Spivey 1-36. NV: Wade Harrison 3-35, Ethan Lee 2-66, Matt Kingrey 1-12.
Next — North Vermillion (2-0) plays Friday at Covington. South Vermillion (1-1) plays host to Owen Valley on Friday.
