Kaiser rolls over Jay County (09/02/06)

Adam Kaiser is missing something.

But it's not drive.

It's not toughness.

And it's not desire.

What he's missing is that part of his brain that tells him he's tired.

Kaiser took the ball over and over again Friday night, hauling his Franklin County Wildcat teammates to a 20-6 victory over the host Jay County Patriots.

He carried 27 times in the second half, picking up 177 yards after the break. He ran 39 times in all for 225 yards. And he caught one pass for 27 yards, accounting for nearly 86 percent of his team's offense.

"Once in a while," said Kaiser after the game when asked if he ever gets tired. "I don't really know (what changed in the second half). I carried it a lot more ... We wore them down."

Franklin County (3-0) struggled to move the ball in the first half, and trailed 6-0 thanks to a successful two-minute drill by the Patriots. But the second half belonged to Kaiser and the Wildcats.

After three failed drives - two three-and-outs by Jay County and one from Franklin County - to open the second half, Franklin County found the right formula. Taking the ball with 8:19 left in the third quarter, coach Kent Grider called Kaiser's number on nine consecutive plays.

The senior running back rewarded his coach with 62 yards rushing, taking the ball down to the Patriot 9-yard line. A quarterback sneak, a false start and another 5-yard run by Kaiser left the Wildcats facing fourth-and-5 from the 8-yard line.

Instead of going to Kaiser again, Franklin County went with the play-action fake and quarterback Mitch Grider found 6-foot-5-inch tight end K.J. Heyward for a touchdown.

"Adam had a hell of a game," said Kent Grider of the running back who also went for more than 200 yards rushing aginst the Patriots last season. "But by the same token, we've got other weapons besides Adam Kaiser.

"The same thing happened last week. Our kids, sometimes you have to punch them in the face three times before they realize they're mad and they want to do something about it. ... I challenged them at halftime."

After the five-minute scoring drive in the third quarter, Kaiser carried the Wildcats on a 14-play, seven-minute drive bridging the third and fourth. He ran the ball 13 times on the drive, including 11 carries in a row, finishing with a 3-yard touchdown run. Grider then hit Heyward with a two-point conversion pass for a 14-6 Franklin County lead.

Jay County's Mitchell Martyne stopped Kaiser on the next Wildcat drive, tossing him for a pair of losses in the backfield. But Kaiser bounced right back after his team came up with an interception of a halfback pass by Michael Jobe, running 52 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the ensuing drive to seal the game.

"I can't take anything away from the defense because when you put them out there 80 percent of the time and you have 280-pound linemen (on the other side) ... eventually that's going to wear on you," said JCHS coach Shane Hill, whose squad limited Franklin County to 83 offensive yards in the first half. "Kaiser runs his legs hard, and we got tired.

"We got tired not because we're out of shape, but because they just played so much in the game because our offense just couldn't sustain anything."

After putting up 187 yards of offense in the opening half - the touchdown came on the final play as quarterback Billy Wellman hit Justin Mann on a 2-yard slant pattern - the Patriots managed just 36 yards after the intermission. They had just two first downs, one of which came on a Wildcat facemask penalty.

Wellman, who completed three of his final four passes for 61 yards on the final drive of the first half, was 0-for-8 in the second half. He finished 7-of-20 for 109 yards.

Michael Jobe ran 19 times for 71 yards, and Corey Comer had 12 carries for 44 yards.

"In the first half we felt great about everything," said Hill. "We had six points, but we had 180 yards of offense in the first half. That 180 yards of offense in the first two quarters almost eclipsed what we had total for the season.

"We just continue to shoot ourselves in the foot - penalties, fourth down and one and not converting, fumbling footballs when we're driving the ball down the field. I think the bottom line, without watching the film, is we have to sustain some things offensively and keep our defense, which is really, really good, off the field."

With his team now 0-3, Hill said he's looking forward to the Olympic Athletic Conference season. Conference play begins Friday with a trip to Anderson Highland.

The Patriots will follow with OAC home games against Muncie Southside and Connersville.

"We're going to go into the next three weeks like it's playoff time," said Hill. "We're going to prepare like it's our last game every single week. Hopefully in three weeks time we can be back on this field and playing Connersville for a conference title."[[In-content Ad]]