Ole overpowered

GAS CITY — One of the keys this season for the Patriots was to play physical and control the line of scrimmage.

Friday night, the Indians were just too big and too strong to accomplish that goal.

And the Ole Miss offensive line made things easy for Carson Campbell.

Jay County High School’s football team managed just 64 yards of total offense and gave up more than 400 yards to Mississinewa as its season came to an end with a 49-0 loss to the host Indians in the Class 4A Sectional 20 quarterfinal at Fisher Field.

“They were just too big and physical for us and caused us problems up front,” said JCHS coach Grant Zgunda, whose team ends the year 3-7 after going 1-18 over the last two seasons.

“I just talked to the team, my main thing is we want to make sure we thank our seniors. I talked to the underclassmen … this is an example of what we need to work on in the offseason. 

“The last few games we’ve just been out-physicaled. It’s just the bottom line. We have to get in the weight room. We have a new weight room and we have to get everybody in there and we have to hit it hard. That is how you become a team that plays that way.”

Mississinewa (7-2) advances to the sectional semifinal Friday at New Haven (5-5), which held off host Huntington North 35-34.

While Mississinewa scored on a 65-yard pass from Nolan Quaderer to Peyton McPeek on the first play from scrimmage, the Indians relied heavily on their run game the remainder of the chilly, drizzly night.

Campbell, a speedy, 5-foot, 5-inch, 158-pound senior, capped the Indians’ second drive with a 3-yard touchdown run, the first of his four scores on the night. He had TD runs of 4 and 65 yards in the second quarter, and a 64-yard scamper in the third.

“It was really good to see us finish our runs,” Mississinewa coach Kyle Buresh said. “We’ve done a really good job of having explosive plays all year with our running backs. Tonight they made us work for it up front, especially early, we didn’t do a good job finishing blocks.

“Toward the end we wore on them a little bit and we were really able to bust them.”

Campbell, who had more than 1,200 rushing yards entering the night, finished with 219 yards on 14 carries.

“He’s good,” Zgunda said. “They are a good team.”

Jay County, which surrendered 14 points in each of the first three quarters, went three-and-out on its first two possessions after failing to gain positive yardage. On the third possession, which was in the second quarter, Caleb Hale broke open a 47-yard run on the first play. However, each of the next three went for a combined negative-3 yards, and an incomplete pass on fourth-and-7 from the Mississinewa 22 ended the drive.

It was the deepest into the Indian territory Jay County got all night.

The team’s next drive started to gain a little bit of traction, but quarterback Sam Dunlavy got hit hard after dropping back to pass and fumbled, and the Indians recovered.

Jay County lost two fumbles and threw two interceptions, the last of which was a 57-yard pick-6 in the fourth quarter.

“It’s something I wish I could explain but I can’t,” Zgunda said of the turnovers. “We had breakdowns offensively. We do things well during the week then somehow we sometimes have mistakes during the game that cost us.”

Buresh said the plan defensively was for Mississinewa to control the gaps and not get caught up in the movement from the Patriot running backs after the snap.

“This is the first (shutout) we’ve had all season so it was awesome for our kids to have that,” he said.

Hale’s only carry made him the team’s leading rusher. Quinn Faulkner finished with a hard-earned 39 yards on 14 totes despite being tackled in the backfield on three of his first six carries. The senior finished the season with 1,037 rushing yards, making him the program’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Cole Stigleman totaled 1,049 in 2016.

“He had a great season,” Zgunda said, “I knew watching last year’s film there was something about him. His explosiveness — he has the ability to go from second to fourth gear real quick and that’s not something you and coach or teach.

“I was excited to coach him. When we could get him out in the open this year he’s as good as anybody.”