Andy Amey
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
Old-time high school football returned to Memorial Stadium on Friday night, and a crowd of more than 10,000 seemed to appreciate that fact.
Terre Haute South dominated the first half and was within a play of beating Terre Haute North after scoring a touchdown on the first possession of overtime. But the Patriots, who had dominated the second half of regulation time, scored on fourth down and took advantage of a roughing-the-passer penalty on the score to add a 2-point conversion from less than 2 yards away for a 22-21 win.
Both teams decided they were moving the ball best with solid offensive line play and punishing ground games, North pulling out some plays the Patriots haven’t used in years to do so in the second half. And players from both sides played with courage and determination that would have been appropriate back in the days of leather helmets, the two overtime drives providing at least three examples.
South got the ball first and wide receiver Kevin Bracken, whose mastery of South’s wildcat formation bedeviled North’s defense all night, shook off cramps to burst 8 yards on first down to set up a Tre Stephens touchdown on the next play.
Daniel Gabbard, who put his team on his back with 122 second-half rushing yards, got 5 yards on first down but was helped off the field with cramps himself. As he watched in agony, the Patriots got to fourth down. Then Chad Holler rolled to his right, threw back across his body to Sidney Moore for a touchdown, and was tackled out of bounds.
“If it wasn’t for the penalty, we probably would have kicked [a game-tying extra point],” coach Chris Barrett said later, but the shortened distance to the end zone was too tempting. And Gabbard got the call, knifing his way barely into the end zone for one of the most dramatic finishes in a 46-game series that’s had its share of those.
“I just had to push through it,” Gabbard said of his final carry.
Three examples? OK, there was Bracken, and Gabbard … and Holler, who ran for one score and passed for two, all after possibly breaking his wrist on a play earlier in the second half.
There may have been better North-South games, although certainly not many. There might not have been two more heroic team efforts, however.
“I think our kids left it all on the field,” coach Mark Raetz of the Braves said. “I’m proud of their effort.”
South’s effort looked like it would lead to a decisive win in the first half. After one three-and-out series, the Braves offense — getting huge holes from its offensive line — marched up and down the field the rest of the first half.
An interception inside the 20-yard line by North linebacker Cam Grim stopped one South drive, but then the Braves went 84 yards in 12 plays for their first score, Bracken setting it up with an 18-yard run and capping the drive with a 3-yarder.
North came back down the field only to have South safety Dillon Bell pick off an interception at his 1-yard line and return it 20 yards. That set up a 79-yard, eight-play drive by the Braves that included a 23-yard burst by Tyler Evans and a 3-yard score by Stephens with 48 seconds left before halftime.
Those 48 seconds could have been crucial, but the Patriots dodged two big bullets. First a high snap into the end zone nearly led to a defensive score for the Braves, but Holler ran the ball out of the end zone. South still had the ball at North’s 15-yard line, but the Braves’ own high snap cost Tyler King a field goal opportunity.
“South came ready to play,” Barrett said after the game. “They had a great game plan, and we didn’t match their intensity. They basically put it to us.”
North took the second-half kickoff and marched to its first score, however. Holler’s third-down pass to Moore at the sticks on the sideline got one first down, Gabbard’s 36-yard run on the next play added some excitement to the Patriot sideline, and Holler scored on a 13-yard run that cut the lead in half.
His wrist was throbbing by that time. “I was rolling right and threw for a first down, and then I got hit and I rolled on [the wrist],” he said after the game. “It was uncomfortable [to throw], but we were down; I had to push through it.”
South started to mount an answering drive, but Bracken left the game for the first time after his first cramping incident and the Braves finally had to punt. The Patriots stayed on the ground as they drove from their own 11-yard to South’s 6, but Tsali Lough, Enreque Brown and Dustin Galenski stopped the Patriots on first down and pass attempts were knocked down by John Story and Jacob Johnson.
South’s second-down run got to the 15-yard line, where a measurement found it was inches short of a first down. A third-down quarterback sneak led to a second measurement, leaving the Braves short by a foot. And a gutsy fourth-down run up the middle by Logan Buske resulted in a third consecutive measurement, both teams standing over the chains making first-down motions, before the officials ruled South had survived its gamble. Moments later a 59-yard run by Evans threatened to clinch a win for South, but North’s Dillon Hare had a saving tackle and the Patriot defense held at the 31-yard line.
Three runs by Gabbard and a 10-yard reverse by Moore put the ball in South territory. Then Holler froze South’s defense with a play fake, gritted his teeth and launched a 33-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Moore.
“We’d been running toss and up the middle; we knew [the Braves] would be cheating up on a play fake,” Holler said after the game.
“Sidney was so wide-open he had to complete that one,” Barrett was able to joke afterward.
South still had almost three minutes to try to win the game, and got one big break when a fumble was picked up by sophomore fullback Pedro Piloni, who continued 16 more yards. But North stiffened again and forced the overtime.
“The kids found a way to win, and we played a lot better in the second half,” Barrett said. “We were able to pull it out — but I don’t know how.”
“We showed we had heart and fought through it,” said Moore, who know has four touchdown receptions against South and is still just a sophomore.
“We saw something in the defense, so we lined up in the I [formation],” said Gabbard after career highs in carries (19) and yards (145). “We thought we could run some power and it worked … I trust my teammates. I knew we were going to get it done.”
“Bottom line, [the Patriots] made the play when they needed to,” said Raetz. “The improvement we made [from the first week of the season] … if we can come out and learn from our mistakes and have a week of practice like we had last week, we’re going to win some games.”
