Jay football has an opponent

The Patriots have an opponent this week.

It’s the Patriots.

The Jay County High School football team will head west Saturday to take on the Seeger Patriots in rural West Lebanon.

Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m.

The announcement came Wednesday afternoon, 20 days after Southern Wells said it would not be playing a varsity schedule this year.

Seeger is located in Warren County, southwest of Lafayette on Indiana 263 just off of Indiana 63 and US 41. The school is approximately 135 miles west of JCHS and is roughly 11 miles away from Indiana’s border with Illinois.

This will be the furthest Jay County has traveled for a football game since the 132-mile excursion in 2008 to play Mishawaka Marian. Jay County’s longest road trip was 141 miles to Bloomington North in 1997.

The Seeger Patriots are a Class 2A team and a member of the Wabash River Conference. They are 0-1 and are coming off a 42-15 loss to Twin Lakes on Friday.

Seeger has lost in the opening round of the sectional tournament in each of the last two seasons, and last played for a sectional title in 2006.

The program has six sectional titles, two regional championships and had a two-year run in which it won 29 games and reached the state final in consecutive seasons. The Patriots were undefeated through the Class A state championship game in 2003, including a semi-state win against Adams Central, before falling to Cardinal Ritter, 28-0, in the title game.

The following year, Seeger again ran the table and once again squared off against Ritter, but this time won the title by a 20-7 score.

This will be the first meeting between Jay County and Seeger.