Patriots pounded in Poneto

PONETO — The Patriots had control of the football game in the first half.
They took a 26-14 lead into intermission, amassed 288 yards of total offense and held the ninth-ranked team in Class A to just 62 yards from scrimmage.
But after halftime, Jay County turned the ball over three times — one was an interception returned for a touchdown — and the Southern Wells Raiders scored 26 unanswered points to keep its undefeated season alive.
“It’s a game of turnovers,” said JCHS coach Tim Millspaugh, whose team drops to 1-2 (0-1 Allen County Athletic Conference). “If you take care of the football good things happen. Unfortunately, we didn’t.”
First year quarterback Holton Hill had thrown two interceptions through the first two games. But Friday against new conference rivals Southern Wells, the Raiders stepped in front of four of his passes. Two of which were returned for touchdowns.
Braxton Garber picked off a pass on a potential hook and ladder in the second quarter and ran it to the end zone from 28 yards out. Seth Trissel then intercepted Hill’s first pass attempt in the second half and scampered 51 yards for the score.
“Big pick sixes,” said Southern Wells coach Steve Yencer. “We work every day on coverage. They just read their keys and broke on the ball. They made big plays.
But it was also the play of quarterback Bryce Bonewit who helped Southern Wells (3-0, 1-0 ACAC) overcome the 12-point halftime deficit.
Bonewit accounted for all 62 of the Raiders’ yards in the first half, and after the break he came out on a mission.
“He’s been a three-year starter for us and runs the triple option pretty well and did a good job for us tonight,” Yencer said. “We just try to get him in the best spot. He made some good reads.”
Bonewit’s reads led to 107 rushing yards alone in the second half, including touchdown runs of 21 and 48 yards. And that is after he had scored on a 27-yard keeper in the second quarter.
The quarterback’s 21-yard touchdown in the third quarter tied the game at 26 with four minutes gone off the clock, and Trissel’s defensive score put the Raiders up 33-26.
Jay County came surging back, though. Hill completed a pass to Cole Stigleman down the left sideline, but the sophomore running back lost the football inside the 5-yard line. Hill was hit on the throw, drawing a roughing the passer penalty to give Jay County a break.
Two plays later, though, Hill rolled to his left and threw the ball toward Bryan Stancliffe in the end zone. Backpedaling, Trissel jumped and picked off the pass as he fell across the goal line for at touchback.
Still, Southern Wells wasn’t done.
When Jay County stacked the box expecting the run — Southern Wells had rushed the ball 115 times and thrown just four through its first two games — Bonewit found Keaton Coleman on a fade route down the right sideline for a 51-yard score.
That touchdown gave the Raiders a 33-26 lead, and Bonewit added his 48-yard TD in the fourth.
“It’s tough on me. It’s tough on the kids,” Millspaugh said of the collapse in the second half. “We constantly talk to our kids about coming out at the start of every half and how important that is … and then we end up throwing the pick for a touchdown and that just boom, they’re right back in the game.
“That’s tough. You have to rally. You can’t feel sorry for yourself, but we definitely didn’t help ourselves.”
Aside for a few mistakes in the second quarter, the field was shifted in Jay County’s favor. The Patriots scored first on a Hill’s 11-yard wheel pass to Stigleman.
Bonewit and Gerber’s scores gave the Raiders a 14-6 lead with more than 10 minutes left in the frame. and the Patriots scored 20 straight points going into halftime.
Hill connected with Stancliffe in the right corner of the end zone on fourth-and-5. That made it 14-12 Southern Wells. The Raiders fumbled on its next play from scrimmage, and Hill found Stigleman on the same wheel route, this time from 24 yards out. Just like that — 14 seconds had ticked off the clock — Jay County led 20-14.
Hill finished 14-for-27 for 185 yards. Stigleman had two receiving touchdowns, led the Patriots with 51 rushing yards, and also completed a 35-yard pass to Skyler Johnson.
Southern Wells went four-and-out on its ensuing drive, and Jay County put together a 67-yard scoring drive when Levi Hummel punched it in from the 1-yard line.
“We were obviously very pleased,” Millspaugh said of the second quarter. “The passing game, we were able to get it going.”
Jay County had 216 yards passing in the first half, but just four in the second.
“We had some opportunities … and didn’t capitalize on it.”