WEST TERRE HAUTE — The red zone was where Paris lamented their what-ifs. It was also where West Vigo’s defense cemented what was.
The Tigers, playing their season opener and looking much-improved after a winless 2005 season, had two scoring chances inside West Vigo’s 10-yard-line in the first 14 minutes of Friday’s interstate high school football game at Jay Barrett Field.
The Vikings managed to stifle the Tigers on both occasions and never looked back. Paris failed to get a first down in the second and third quarters and West Vigo’s running game racked up 311 yards as the Vikings notched a 22-0 victory.
Trey Budd rushed for 155 yards and a touchdown for West Vigo. Josh Likens and quarterback Cogan Keith also rushed for significant yardage as the Vikings’ offense controlled the clock, while the defense stymied the Tigers.
“We’ve got so many versatile players. Trey is a sneaky fullback, Josh pounds the outside, we’ve got Calym Lewis and Andy Jackson, who are great on our counter plays. That’s what we’re trying to do [with West Vigo football]. We want kids to go longer in games and not take as much of a pounding,” West Vigo coach Jeff Cobb said.
It didn’t appear that West Vigo (2-0) was to embark on its first shutout victory in two seasons., especially when the opening kickoff was fumbled and the loose ball recovered by Paris’ Jake Keys at the West Vigo 20-yard line.
Paris (0-1) drove as deep as the West Vigo 7, but on 3rd-and-goal, West Vigo’s Dirk Keller and Jeff Jones combined to sack Paris quarterback Gary Griggs, knocking the Tigers back to the 12. A Griggs pass into the end zone on fourth down went long and Paris was left empty-handed.
“This is what you want in the early season ... within reason,” Cobb said. “You want to see how your kids respond. We rotated a lot of kids tonight, so it was good, we saw a lot of nice things.”
Another Tigers’ chance came the more traditional way later in the quarter, as the Tigers drove 74 yards in 16 plays, eating up over seven minutes of game time. Paris running back Colt Halloran provided most of the yards on his way to a 58-yard effort.
But once again, West Vigo’s defense stiffened. Halloran fumbled on 2nd-and-1 from the 5, Griggs threw an incompletion on third down at the 6, and on fourth down, West Vigo’s Jesse Padgett and Jacob Leek sacked Griggs for a nine-yard loss — ending another Tigers threat.
“We have young kids with talent and just because of their talent we got ourselves in some good positions taking advantage of some of their mistakes,” Paris coach Mike Pagliaro said. “But the fact that we have young kids means we just don’t know yet how to stick the dagger in. We had that team down, we could have won that football game.”
West Vigo then took its own time getting on the scoreboard. An epic 16-play, 79-yard drive ended with a 33-yard field goal by Trevor Kelshiemer to make it 3-0. The Vikings had a touchdown by Likens wiped out on the drive due to a holding penalty.
West Vigo’s defense then rose to the occasion again as Andy Jackson intercepted a Griggs pass at midfield. A 30-yard run by Keith, escorted by center Travis Carter who threw some key blocks, quickly put the Vikings in scoring range. West Vigo just barely got into the end zone before the half ended, Budd scoring on a 1-yard run with 7 seconds left (with no West Vigo timeouts) to make it 9-0.
“Trey was phenomenal tonight. He did a great job, he’s a warrior, he does not come off the field,” Cobb said.
Paris amassed only six total yards in the third quarter, giving weight to Likens’ 16-yard touchdown run with 6:11 to go in the quarter as the two-touchdown advantage West Vigo gained with its 15-0 lead looked even bigger when compared with Paris’ inability to move the ball.
Keith connected on a 55-yard pass to Aaron Welch early in the fourth quarter, setting up a 1-yard keeper by Keith with 10:19 to go to make it 22-0. Paris would once again drive inside the West Vigo 10-yard line midway through the quarter, but Griggs couldn’t complete any of his passes into the end zone, and the Tigers ultimately gave the ball up on downs.
“COBB
An incident between Pagliaro and a group of West Vigo assistant coaches marred the postgame handshake (see related story).
West Vigo begins Western Indiana Conference play next Friday at Brown County. Paris begins Apollo Conference play next Friday as it hosts Charleston.
“I think we played well considering it was our first game of the year. We were nearly flawless in terms of penalties and things like that, so I’m very, very happy with their effort. We just don’t know how to win a football game yet,” Pagliaro said.
West Vigo 22, Paris 0
Paris 0 0 0 0 — 0
West Vigo 0 9 6 7 — 22
WV — Trevor Kelshiemer 33 FG, 1:49 2Q
WV — Trey Budd 1 run (kick blocked), :07.9 2Q
WV — Josh Likens 16 run (run failed), 6:11 3Q
WV — Cogan Keith 1 run (Kelshiemer kick), 10:19 4Q
P WV
First downs 9 23
Rushes-yards 21-35 52-311
Passing yards 105 78
Comp-Att-Int 10-28-2 4-10-0
Fumbles-lost 1-0 2-1
Penalties-yards 2-25 4-37
Punts-avg 2-29.5 1-39
Individual statistics
Rushing — Paris: Colt Halloran 14-58, Jake Keys 1-6, Gary Griggs 6-(-29). West Vigo: Budd 21-155, Likens 9-71, C. Keith 11-69, Kaylm Lewis 3-30, Jacob Collins 3-(-3), Landon Keith 2-(-3), Andy Jackson 3-(-8).
Passing — Paris: Griggs 10-28-2, 105 yards. West Vigo:, C. Keith 4-8-0, 78, L. Keith 0-2-0, 0.
Receiving — Paris: Chase Brinkley 4-64, Mike Griffin 3-29, Michael Mattingly 1-9, Avery Mason 1-4, Halloran 1-(-1). West Vigo: Aaron Welch 2-66, Jacob Leek 1-14, Likens 1-(-2).
Next games — West Vigo (2-0) travels to Brown County next Friday. Paris (0-1) plays host to Charleston next Friday.
High School
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Early ‘D’ helps West Vigo shut out Paris
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