Costly mistakes

After 33 minutes, 29 seconds, Mother Nature got the better of the Patriots and the Trojans.

Just under two hours later, the Trojans walked away as the victors.

After waiting for 1 hour, 58 minutes, and trailing by three scores, the Patriots decided to concede the game.

Multiple lightning delays kept the Jay County High School football team from restarting its game with the New Castle Trojans on Friday night before the Patriots decided to take the loss.

New Castle (1-1) built a 20-0 lead before the lightning delay at 2:31 on the clock in the third quarter.

“We just made too many mistakes, starting from the first play of the game,” said JCHS coach Grant Zgunda in an interview prior to the decision to forfeit. “We just made too many mistakes and it cost us.”

That first mistake came on the kickoff, when the ball rolled to the Jay County 1-yard line, leaving the home team to try to traverse nearly the entire length of the field.

It managed to get a first down, but facing third-and-13, quarterback Sean Bailey threw pass intended for Brady Jetmore that got picked off by New Castle’s Ryan Cupp. Six plays later, Caleb Clapp rushed for 5 yards and the first touchdown of the game at at the 6:22 mark.

On the opening play of the second drive for Jay County (1-1), the Patriots got called for holding, allowing the Trojans to force them three-and-out.

New Castle’s other touchdowns came in the second quarter as the result of a couple of big plays. The first was a 44-yard pass from Carson Bell to Neil McMartin to move the ball to the 7-yard line. Two plays later, Bell tossed the ball to Cade Logston for a 6-yard touchdown at 8:03.

Benson Ward of the Jay County football team jumps up to try and receive a pass during the Patriots’ 20-0 loss in three quarters Friday. The Patriots only had eight passing yards on 11 attempts.  (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Two drives later, facing second-and-16, Bell found McMartin again on a quick pass in the open field, allowing the junior to take the ball 75 yards to the end zone with 1:10 remaining in the half.

The Patriots managed stops on the three drives the Trojans didn’t rip off major plays.

Jay County couldn’t find a similar big play to help them break through. Despite five first downs on eight drives, the Patriots never found the end zone.

“Anytime we got a play like that where we got something going we either got a penalty, had a turnover, dropped a pass,” Zgunda said. “We had to capitalize on those opportunities when you get them. We didn’t and they did.”

The closest they got was in the third quarter. The eight-play drive featured seven run to gain 24 yards and put them on the Trojan’s 6-yard line. On the final rush, A.J. Myers fumbled the ball five yards from the end zone and New Castle recovered.

The game first got suspended because of lightning at 9:01 p.m. New Castle had the ball on its own 20-yard line facing fourth-and-5 with 2:31 remaining in the game. 

After more than an hour and a half of waiting and with the radar still showing a lot of storm activity moving in, at 10:40 p.m., the game was postponed to today with a restart time of 6 p.m. Following the announcement of the new time, coaches and athletic directors from both schools met on the field to discuss the situation further.

At 10:59 p.m., The Commercial Review got a phone call from Jay County athletics director Alex Griffin informing the paper of the Patriots' concession.

The junior varsity game will go on at 10 a.m. today and the varsity’s next game will be Friday when they host the Southern Wells Raiders for the Allen County Athletic Conference opener.