Patriots seek trip home for sectional finale (10/27/05)

Swagger.

That has become a favorite term for the sports media in recent years.

Great teams seem to have it — that air of confidence.

It has been most often associated with college football’s Miami Hurricanes.

If you watched the NFL’s Monday Night Football game this year with the Philadelphia Eagles facing the Atlanta Falcons, you saw swagger.

The point?

For the first time in ages the Patriots will walk into a game against Delta — and at Delta no less — with a swagger.

“We know we’re good,” said senior Cody Hutzler after practice Wednesday.

That attitude is different from when Jay County’s football team visited the Delta Eagles to open this season. Back then, the Patriots thought they could beat Delta, but had no real reason to believe it.

Having lost 13 straight times to the Eagles and without an offensive point in the last four meetings, the team fell behind 26-0 at halftime.

Delta, which threw for 226 first-half yards, went to the running game after the break and cruised to a 32-6 win.

But now the Patriots are 7-3 and have won more games than any Jay County team since 1986.

They have won six of their last seven contests, with the lone loss in that stretch coming against Class 4A No. 2 Indianapolis Cathedral.

And they are coming off a 27-point fourth quarter and the greatest rushing performance in school history — 308 yards and four touchdowns from Justin Gilbert — in a 41-28 sectional opening win over Pendleton Heights.

“The first time (we played Delta) we were a little timid coming out,” said Nathan Conatser of the prospect of facing the Class 4A No. 10 Eagles again. “And now we’re just ready to play.”

“The confidence we’ve built over the last couple of weeks keeps us going,” added Joseph Vormohr. “I haven’t heard one thing about us losing this weekend. Everyone at school thinks we’re going to win.”

There is plenty of motivation to do so.

A victory would give Jay County eight wins. The last Patriot team to win that many games was the 1982 squad, which finished 8-2.

A victory would also send Jay County to just its third sectional title game in school history. In the two previous sectional championship games the Patriots lost 34-7 to Kokomo in 1985 and 42-6 to Delta in 2000.

A victory would also mean getting to play that sectional championship game at home.

“It’s what we’ve been working for since December, not just since August. We’ve been in the weight room talking about this. This senior class has stayed together for four years thinking about this moment,” said JCHS coach Shane Hill, who is in his fourth year with the team. “... I think it’s a big deal. It’s just a football game, but when you look at it, to bring that kind of pride back to our county, to our school, to our parents, to everybody, I think it’s going to be a huge deal. ...

“What that could do for this program for many years to come ... is unspeakable.”

Over the last three seasons Delta has dominated the Patriots with their passing game.

The last two times the Patriots have visited Delta, Eagle quarterbacks — Tyler Eskew in 2003 and Tyler Hernly this year — have thrown for more than 200 yards in the first half.

Jay County has been outscored 81-2 in the first half by the Eagles in their last three meetings.

Hernly has thrown for 1,603 yards and 15 touchdowns in eight games this season. Four different Delta receivers have at least 10 receptions, including Brandon Huston with a team-leading 38 catches for 770 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Hill said his defense will shift this week, with safeties focused on stopping the Delta aerial attack instead of serving as run support.

The Eagles’ top runner is Dane Cook, who has carried the ball 120 times for 806 yards and 12 touchdowns. Michael Capstick has run 56 times for 401 yards.

“We’re going to try to stop the run with the front seven and stop the pass with the back four,” Hill said. “They run a lot of one receiver and two receiver routes so we’re going to take advantage of the fact that we know that and just play physical.”

The Patriots will also need to find a way to score against a stout Delta defense. Their third-quarter touchdown this season ended an 18-quarter scoreless streak by the offense against the Eagles. And Delta’s defense has allowed an average of just 10.8 points per game this year.

But Jay County’s offense has found its rhythm as well, scoring 50, 44 and 41 points in its last three victories.

Gilbert, who ran his season total to 1,338 yards and broke the 2,000-yard barrier for his career with his 308 yards at Pendleton Heights, has been the key down the stretch. He has scored eight of his 15 touchdowns on the season in the last two weeks.

“We’re on a roll,” said Hill. “We had a couple of squeakers in there against Anderson Highland and Connersville, but we’ve played some pretty good football.

“We’re hitting our peak when we should be hitting it here at tournament time. Hopefully we can just ride this emotion that we have going and play the best we possibly can.”

Jay County’s seniors listed a variety of things they want to do Friday night:

“Play together, and as a team.”

“Play the best we’ve played all season.”

“Know that we left everything on the field.”

But when asked what they needed to do to make them happy when they walked off the field, it really only took them one word to answer:

“Win.”[[In-content Ad]]