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October 17, 2009

447 rushing yards push West Vigo past Sullivan

By Andy Amey

Sullivan — It was a game John Madden would have loved.

Not only would the former National Football League coach and color commentator enjoyed watching the mud-caked high school players from West Vigo and Sullivan file off Sportland Field on Friday night, the white Viking jerseys barely distinguishable from the purple Sullivan uniforms, he’d have also loved the way they got so muddy — pounding each other back and forth with eye-popping rushing statistics that included 230 yards on the ground for Sullivan’s Dakota Hiatt and 447 yards rushing as a team for the Vikings.

And because the Vikings had a little more diversity in their attack — six different West Vigo players had at least 37 yards rushing — the visitors were 45-28 winners in the Western Indiana Conference game and regular-season finale for both teams.

The lead changed hands four times in less than six minutes during the third quarter, but then West Vigo finally got a handle on Hiatt and the counter play he’d used to great effect — three runs of at least 56 yards — and wound up scoring the game’s last 19 points.

“We never did really stop [the Vikings],” coach Trent Olson of the Golden Arrows said after the game. “They totally outphysicaled us … a lot of this game goes back to size and strength.”

While the Vikings were indeed the bigger of the two teams — “every team we’ve played has been bigger than us,” Olson claimed — the Arrows matched them score for score for a long time, and twice took third-quarter leads thanks to a better job at 2-point conversions.

Hiatt’s 60-yard run — on that counter play, of course — set up his own 2-yard touchdown run with five minutes left in the third quarter, although he was stopped on a conversion attempt that left the Arrows ahead 28-26.

“He’s been running well,” Olson said of Hiatt, “but in the second half he was obviously a marked man.”

“The thing is, we run the same play [in our offense],” coach Jeff Cobb of the Vikings said after the game when asked about Hiatt’s breakaways, “but sometimes our aggressiveness works against us … but we finally started to stop it — although we were 0 for 3 at one point [against that play].”

The Vikings recovered one of Sullivan’s several short or onside kickoffs, and took the lead for good on a 52-yard, four-play drive. Sophomore Chase Silcock rambled 24 yards on one play and Cole Lydick — who led the Vikings with 133 yards on 15 carries — got the last 27 yards on the next two plays.

Three plays later linebacker Ryan Roach — who would have been a Madden favorite for the amount on mud on his uniform — nailed Hiatt on a third-down counter play to force a Sullivan punt, and Dylan Aff returned it 32 yards. On third-and-inches Roach — playing fullback in the Vikings’ tightly packed double wing formation — solidified his Madden status by churning the final 23 yards to a touchdown on a simple dive play designed to get nothing more than a first down.

That was the first two-score lead for the Vikings, so the Arrows gambled on fourth-and-5 in their own territory. A pass fell incomplete, and Cody Thornton took a reverse 37 yards to the end zone on West Vigo’s first play to complete the scoring early in the fourth quarter.

West Vigo had opened the scoring on its second possession of the game, a 92-yard drive in two plays — 49 yards for Aff, 43 for Lydick.

Sullivan fumbled away the kickoff, Dustin Montgomery recovering for the Vikings, but West Vigo failed to capitalize. Then Hiatt unveiled the counter play, racing 69 yards to set up a 1-yard scoring run for quarterback Tyler Cox.

The Vikings marched 57 yards in 12 plays, Nick Cramer scoring on fourth-and-goal from the 1, and Aff ran for the 2-point conversion. But Hiatt rambled 56 yards for a touchdown and added his own conversion for a 14-14 tie.

West Vigo got a scoring drive in the last two minutes of the half, Aff’s 35-yard run setting up Cramer’s 10-yard touchdown, and appeared to have a two-touchdown lead when Thornton — who wasn’t tackled all night — returned the second-half kickoff 80 yards. But a penalty wiped out that score, West Vigo was forced to punt, and Sullivan took its first lead when Alex Smith caught a touchdown pass — off the hands of a Viking defender — and Ryan Vermelson converted a fake kick into a 2-point conversion to make the score 22-20.

Three plays and 70 yards later, West Vigo was back ahead after a 27-yard run by Silcock, a 33-yarder by Cramer and a 10-yard touchdown by Silcock. Then Hiatt had his final breakaway to set up the Arrows’ final lead.

“Thankfully we had Silcock available to spell some kids,” said Cobb, whose team played without regular fullback John Burt, “and all the backs ran well.”

The victory snapped a five-game losing streak for the Vikings, who had started the season with three straight wins, and may have restored a little momentum going into postseason play.

“It was huge,” Cobb said of the win. “We felt like we’ve been in most of our games, but five or six plays have been hurting us and you can’t do that to good teams.

“[The Vikings] played with emotion,” Cobb added when asked what had made the difference. “This was the first time I have felt they played with emotion — almost too much. For the first time, I had to calm some kids down. They played hard.”



West Vigo 45,

Sullivan 28

West Vigo 6 14 19 6 — 45

Sullivan 6 8 14 0 — 28

WV — Cole Lydick 43 run (kick blocked), 7:22 1st

S — Tyler Cox 1 run (kick failed), 2:25 1st

WV — Nick Cramer 1 run (Dylan Aff run), 7:56 2nd

S — Dakota Hiatt 56 run (Hiatt run), 6:20 2nd

WV — Cramer 10 run (kick blocked), 0:33.8 2nd

S — Alex Smith 71 pass from T.Cox (Ryan Vermelson run), 9:22 3rd

WV — Chase Silcock 10 run (run failed), 8:27 3rd

S — Hiatt 2 run (run failed), 5:00 3rd

WV — Lydick 13 run (run failed), 3:38 3rd

WV — Ryan Roach 23 run (Nathan Gregg kick), 1:12 3rd

WV — Cody Thornton 37 run (kick failed), 9:52 4th

WV S

First downs 21 14

Rushes-yards 52-447 40-238

Passing yards 3 138

Comp-Att-Int 1-6-0 6-22-1

Return yards 32 4

Fumbles-lost 2-1 5-1

Punts-avg 4-29.5 5-32.4

Penalties-yards 7-60 3-30

Individual statistics

Rushing: West Vigo — Lydick 15-133, Aff 7-93, Silcock 7-74, CVramer 12-64, Roach 7-46, Thornton 1-37, Lance Garrett 3-0. Sullivan — Hiatt 19-230, Jed Cox 4-14, John Walker 1-2, Thomas Smith 3-0, T.Cox 13-minus 8.

Passing: West Vigo — Garrett 1-6-0, 3 yards. Sullivan — T.Cox 6-22-1, 138.

Receiving: West Vigo — Cramer 1-3. Sullivan — A.Smith 2-82, Hiatt 2-18, Chance Hollifield 1-22, Vermelson 1-16.

Next — Both teams completed the regular season 4-5 overall, 2-4 in Western Indiana Conference play. Next Friday, West Vigo hosts Southmont in a Class 3A Sectional 21 game and Sullivan hosts South Spencer in a Class 2A Sectional 32 contest. The game at Sullivan next Friday has an 8 p.m. kickoff.

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