Short in shootout

BLUFFTON — Defense was all but absent.

The more than 1,000 yards of total offense combined proves it.

When the Tigers needed a stop the most, leading by one with no time on the clock, they got it.

Michael Schlechty had his potential game-winning two-point conversion run come up just short of the goal line on Friday as the Jay County High School football team lost to the Bluffton Tigers in a shootout, 63-62.

“In the moment it makes it worse but I don't know that I can recall a loss, regular season, as painful as this,” said JCHS coach Tim Millspaugh, whose team has now lost back-to-back games and dips to 2-3 (1-2 Allen County Athletic Conference) on the season. “It's a great game. If you win, you are so jacked. If you lose, it's awful.”

The 125 combined points is the most in program history for Jay County, surpassing the 63-54 setback to Muncie Southside in 2008.

Given the situation with no time remaining, second-year Bluffton coach Brent Kunkel would have done the same thing as Millspaugh.

“The Schlechty kid is a stud,” Kunkel said. Schlechty had 88 yards and two touchdowns up to that point.

“We knew tonight was going to be a fight just the way things played out last year, us going down there and winning a game we probably shouldn't have won.

“They couldn't stop us. We couldn't stop them.”

Getting to that do-or-die conversion was nothing short of a roller coaster ride, giving fans from both sides reason to cheer for the full 48 minutes.

And there was enough drama on the final drive alone.

After Bluffton (1-4, 1-2 ACAC) jumped ahead 63-55 with 2:16 to play, Gabe Faulkner returned the ensuing kickoff to the Jay County 36-yard line, and a late-hit penalty gave the Patriots the ball at the Tigers' 49.

Jay County later faced second-and-6 from the 30 when Parker Grimes got sacked for a 10-yard loss. But Grimes kept the ball on the next play, covering 15 yards, and then burst through the middle on a sneak for three yards to give JCHS first-and-10 from the 22.

A spike to stop the clock made it second down, and back-to-back incompletions to Caleb Webster in the end zone made it fourth-and-10 with 25.8 seconds left.

A pass interference penalty gave JCHS new life at the Bluffton 11 with 19.6 seconds remaining. The next snap to Grimes went over his head and he fell on it at the 21, and the Patriots rushed back to the line of scrimmage so he could spike the ball.

Facing third-and-20, Grimes threw over the middle to Ryan Schlechty — they connected nine times for 189 yards and three touchdowns — but the ball got tipped. Isaac Moeller was there to haul in the loose ball for the touchdown to make it 63-62.

“I thought offensively we played really, really well,” said Millspaugh. Jay County had a season-high 511 yards of total offense. Bluffton gained 536 from scrimmage.

“I was really, really proud of the effort there and we executed with what they gave us.”

But the Patriots weren't able to get the three more yards they needed for the two-point conversion and suffered their second defeat by fewer than a touchdown.

Grimes had a career night, completing 16 of his 27 pass attempts — two were spikes to stop the clock — for 353 yards and six touchdowns.

He did all of that out of the shotgun, a formation Jay County hasn't ran in more than five years.

“You have to identify who your best players are and you have got to give them as many opportunities to make plays and help you,” Millspaugh said. “One of our best players plays quarterback, and by putting him back there it's easier for him to see so he can run and it's also easier for him to see in the passing game.”

Grimes also threw a 40-yard TD to Gabe Faulkner in the first quarter and a 19-yard TD to Caleb Webster in the fourth. He tucked it and ran eight times, finishing with 61 yards.

“It's a one-game sample, but I think it looked pretty good tonight,” Millspaugh said of the shotgun formation.

The bulk of Bluffton's offense came from its 5-foot, 9-inch, 198-pound running back Everett Johnson, who barreled through the Jay County defense 38 times for 298 yards and five touchdowns, including four straight Bluffton scores.

“We didn't have run defense at all tonight,” said Millspaugh, whose team allowed 425 yards on the ground. “I don't think it was an effort issue but our execution on the defensive side of the ball tonight just wasn't very good. Our tackling was bad.”

Kunkel knew Johnson had the ability for a big game, too.

“He's our guy,” Kunkel said. “Kid is a fighter, he is an absolute stud. We were able to create some holes and he made things happen.

“You don't expect that from a kid but it is definitely something he is capable of."