Plowing Patriots

Michael Schlechty wasn’t much of a threat as a sophomore.

He recorded 11 catches on the year, reached the end zone twice and didn’t have a single carry.

His first game as a junior might make other teams take notice.

Schlechty scored three touchdowns, had a pair of two-point conversions and Holton Hill was nearly flawless through the air Friday as the Jay County High School football team opened its season with a 43-6 blasting of the Blackford Bruins at Harold E. Schutz Memorial Stadium.

“He is a stud, there is no doubt about it,” said JCHS coach Tim Millspaugh, whose squad played a team other than the Delta Eagles for the first time since 1996. Jay County, which last won its season opener that year with a 12-7 victory over Blackford, travels to Delta on Friday.

Randy Sehy, whose Blackford team put the ball on the ground four times — three were turnovers — was disappointed in his team’s effort trying to bring down the 6-foot, 2-inch Schlechty, who tips the scales at 235.

“He is a big kid,” said Sehy. The Bruins (0-1) have lost their season opener for the third straight year. “He’s one of those kids you have to stop before he gets started and we didn’t do a very good job of that.”

Schlechty, who scored touchdowns in each of the first three quarters, finished with nine carries for 73 yards and two catches for 29 more. After his twin brother Ryan put the Patriots out front with a 7-yard TD run on the game’s first drive, JCHS recorded a safety for an 8-0 advantage and then Michael Schlechty pounded the ball up the middle from 3 yards out for his first career rushing touchdown.

Just before halftime, Hill connected with Michael Schlechty in the right flat for a 21-yard touchdown with four seconds left on the clock as the Patriots led 31-6 at half.

He then punched one in from the 11-yard line for his third and final score of the game with 1:15 to play in the third quarter.

“It is a great feeling,” he said. “Something I wasn’t able to do last year, but I was hoping to do this year. I was seeing a lot of open holes. My line worked really well tonight. They build the holes for me, I just had to make something happen.”

As effective as he was bruising his way through the Bruins defensively, Hill was just as lethal through the air. The senior completed 12 of his 13 pass attempts, including his first 11 throws, for 204 yards and three touchdowns.

“He does nothing really special,” Sehy said of Hill. “He just completes passes. They run great timing routes. He puts the ball right where it needs to be all the time. That is hard to cover.

“In high school you kind of wait for those kids to make a mistake, and if they don’t they can eat up some yards.”

Junior Caleb Webster caught five of Hill’s passes for a game-high 84 yards, but senior Caden Stant was the lone wideout to reach paydirt. Stant had four grabs for 81 yards and two touchdowns.

Hill found him wide open on a post route over the middle for a 32-yard score in the second quarter for a 23-6 JCHS advantage, and they had a 10-yard connection in the fourth quarter on fourth-and-7 for the game’s final points.

“Very pleased with him,” Millspaugh said of Stant, before continuing on about Hill, who was one yard shy of matching his career-high passing total. “His ability to process — he’s always been a football kid, he’s a coach’s kid — he understands the game. You can’t quantify experience. He knows what’s coming, his reactions are really good and he’s throwing a really good, tight spiral right where it needs to be.”

Jay County finished with 359 yards of total offense compared to Blackford’s 178. The Bruins had 106 yards at halftime, and right out of the gate to start the second half drove 52 yards on 13 plays only to turn the ball over on downs at the Patriot 5-yard line.

“We feel like we have a really good defense this year,” Millspaugh said. “We have some impact players at every level of our defense and some really good supporting members.”

Ethan Theurer finished with 17 tackles, including a pair in the backfield. Dustin Minnick, Ryan Schlechty and Adam Wilhelm all had fumble recoveries while Noah Hummel was responsible for the safety.