Patriots shut down

The Patriots picked up their first postseason win in seven years on the final Friday of October. Moving into November, they knew they would need to be perfect to have a shot at taking down the Knights.

As the first half was coming to a close, they remained within striking distance before a 43-yard punt return set up a last minute score.

The Jay County High School football team’s season came to an end at the hands of the Bishop Luers Knights 41-8 in the IHSAA Class 3A Sectional 28 semifinal game on Friday night.

With the victory, Bishop Luers (7-4) will host No. 2 Mississinewa in the sectional championship on Nov. 8.

“I’ve seen Luers do a lot worse than that to teams,” said JCHS coach Grant Zgunda. “We hung right in there for (nearly) a half. … (We) played hard the whole game and that doesn’t always happen when you’re in a game like that when you’re down that way.”

The Jay County (3-8) defense did what it could to force BLHS to make plays and earn its points in the first half.

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Jay County football sectional semifinal vs. Bishop Luers (11/1/2024)

The Knights scored on the first drive after a 14-yard pass from Jayce White to McKale Woodson, a 16-yard rush by Jacob Felger and a 36-yard carry by DaMeon Hogue to get the ball to the 7-yard line. Felger had a pair of runs to punch the ball in.

The Patriots managed a stop on the second drive, but Bishop Luers got the ball on the Jay County 41-yard line to start its third drive. A series of seven runs and one pass ended with Hogue carrying the ball 6 yards for the second score of the game with 5:40 remaining in the half.

JCHS stood the Knights up on their fourth drive and got the ball back with two minutes remaining in the half. A quick three-and-out had the Patriots punting the ball with less than a minute remaining. Bishop Luers took advantage as Daveon Surry returned the ball 43 yards to get to the 7-yard line — the Patriots finished the drive on the 18 — to set up Felger for his second TD and to go up 21-0 with 47.9 seconds remaining.

“Twenty-one points is a lot for us to overcome against these guys,” Zgunda said. “When it was 14-0 with 50 seconds left in the half I’m like, ‘Alright, if we can just get to halftime, you can come out get a big play, you’re one score then anything can happen.’

“That punt return, you can’t do that when it’s 14-0 nothing at half against Luers. It’s going to be hard enough for us to score a touchdown against those guys because they are really good, let alone three.”

The Knights’ defense gave Jay County fits the entire night, only allowing one first down the entire first half — it came on a roughing the kicker call — and two on the final drive of the game.

In total, the Patriots managed 81 yards of offense on 21 carries and 4-of-13 passing. They moved the ball 68 yards on the final drive. Quarterback Sean Bailey found Rhysin Blowers twice for 27 yards, while A.J. Myers, Bailey and Isaac Dues ran the ball 41 yards, including Dues 6-yard rush for the score.

Bishop Luers often blitzed Bailey, sacking him twice, tackling him for a loss five times for 23 yards and forcing him to throw the ball away multiple times.

“It’s a whole team effort,” said BLHS coach Kyle Lindsay. “We’ve got size, we’ve got speed on the defensive side of the ball. It’s hard to just dial in on one or two guys up front. We do have quite a few blitz packages. We probably didn’t get into half of them tonight because our defense wasn’t on the field very much.

“But (Bailey) is a tough kid. He’s one of the more athletic, dual-threat quarterbacks that we’ve seen this year. So for our defense to come out and take care of business wasn’t surprising, but to do it the way we did was a good night.”

While Zgunda was pleased with how his defense made the Knights work to earn their points — only six plays went for more than 15 yards — it couldn’t slow down the scoring in the second half. The defending Class 2A state champions found the end zone twice in the third quarter on a 2-yard rush by backup quarterback Devin Patterson and a 29-yard carry by Hogue. Patterson connected with Evan Wilkens for a 20-yard TD in the fourth as well.

The Patriots will graduate 13 players from the roster, including key offensive players in Bailey, Myers and receiver Benson Ward, as well as a pair of defensive leaders in Lucas Strait and Dues.

“They’re huge,” Zgunda said. “They just go compete. They’re competitors and flat out hate to lose and that’s what’s been so tough about having some games that could have went our way but didn’t. We didn’t come out and have any games that were embarrassing in any way, and even this game. Our kids played hard and that’s all you can ask for.”