Red Devils back on track with 47-14 victory
BY JIM DABBELT
What a difference 48 seconds can make in a football game.
After a sluggish first half that saw both Tippecanoe and Sidney struggle to produce any offense, the Red Devils scored 14 points in the final 48 seconds of the first half, then dominated the second half en route to a 47-14 rout of the Yellow Jackets to get back on the winning track. Tipp now stands 5-2 on the season and moves closer to a playoff spot in the Division III state playoffs.
“Our philosophy this whole week has been finish like a champion,” Tippecanoe head coach Matt Burgbacher said. “Every drill we did we focused on that. We finished the first half exactly the way we wanted to finish. We did a great job driving down the field to score and we thought they would just run the clock out and lucky for us we had great coverage and Andrew Oen makes a play and we get another score.”
Both teams struggled in the first 24 minutes of the game to get any kind of tempo going as Tipp led 6-0 after the opening period. After both teams were forced to punt on their opening possession, Lucas Merry intercepted a Sidney pass, then Tipp moved the ball into Sidney territory. Two sacks later, the Red Devils were forced to punt, ending that threat.
On their next drive, Max Howard blocked a Sidney punt setting the Red Devils up at the Sidney 28, where they later scored on a five-yard run from Cael Liette with 44.3 seconds left in the opening period.
Sidney picked off a pass on their next defensive possession but they ended up turning the ball over on downs, but on their next drive, they took the lead.
A 14-yard scoring strike gave Sidney a 7-6 lead with 2:07 left in the half, but Tipp quickly answered with a 70-yard drive ending with an Evan Liette 39-yard touchdown with 50.8 left, giving Tipp a 13-6 lead.
Andrew Oen then came up big with an interception returning to the Sidney 12, where they scored on Peyton Schultz’s five-yard keeper with four seconds left, giving Tipp a 20-7 lead at the half.
Tipp added to their lead on a scoring pass from Schultz to Logan Bowling, pushing the Tipp lead to 27-7 as they started to take control of the game. Cael Liette added to the lead at the 5:55 mark on a short touchdown run, making it 33-7.
Tipp recovered the kickoff when Sidney didn’t pick it up and shortly after, Liette scored again to send the game into a running clock mode and a 40-7 lead.
Tipp capped the scoring in the fourth when Logan Butera scored on a short run, making it 47-7.
“We are getting close,” Burgbacher said. “It was great after last week. Last week was a huge negative for us but sometimes it’s good. We had some of our best practices of the year this week.”
“We had our moments tonight where we are a really good football team, and moments where we are not.”
Tipp returns to the field Friday night on Pee Wee night at the park against West Carrollton. The Pirates are 1-6 and have been outscored 250-47 this season. They are coming off a 14-13 win against Piqua on Friday.
