Columbus East may have been without its starting quarterback Friday night, but that didn’t seem to slow down the Olympians’ offense.
East put up more than 500 yards of total offense, including better than 400 on the ground, bouncing back from last week’s loss at Columbus North with a 56-30 Hoosier Hills Conference victory against Seymour.
“I felt good,” East coach Bob Gaddis said. “We thought they were pretty decent up front. They gave us some unconventional looks with a lot of blitzes. Seymour came out and played with a lot of intensity, and what our kids need to understand is that everybody in our conference is going to come out and play us tough, and we have to match their intensity.”
Jamon Hogan carried 19 times for 204 yards and three touchdowns. Caleb Voelker, filling in at quarterback for the injured Josh Major, ran for 122 yards and a score and completed all three of his passes for 96 yards and a touchdown. Jaedin Miller also ran for three scores.
The Owls (0-3, 0-2) actually had a chance to take the lead in the opening minute of the second quarter. After the Olympians (2-1, 1-0) scored on a 45-yard pass from Voelker to Cam Wilson with 2:48 left in the first quarter, Seymour answered with a touchdown, with quarterback Alan Perry going in from the 1 to cut the lead to 7-6. But Perry’s 2-point conversion pass fell incomplete.
East then scored the first three times it had the ball in the second quarter. Hogan ran 22 yards for a touchdown, Miller scored on a 1-yard plunge and Hogan carried 12 yards for his second touchdown with 1:37 left in the first half.
The Owls came back with an eight-play, 68-yard drive to get on the board just before halftime. On fourth-and-10 from the Olympians’ 23, Perry found Scotty Nieves in the corner of the end zone with 7 seconds remaining. The 2-point conversion failed, leaving the score 28-12 at the half.
East erased any doubt by scoring the first two times it had the ball in the second half. Both drives ended with 1-yard touchdown runs by Miller.
Seymour then took advantage of a botched punt catch to score its third touchdown. Taking over at the Olympians 21, the Owls needed only three plays, with Perry taking it in from the 5 to cut the lead to 42-18.
East answered with a 3-yard run by Voelker. The Owls came back with another Perry scoring run, this time from 3 yards out on fourth-and-goal.
After a failed onside kick attempt, Hogan went 51 yards on the Olympians’ first play. Seymour then drove for its final touchdown, a 5-yard run by Perry.
“Defensively, we gave them some short fields, and you can’t do that,” Gaddis said. “They run the triple-option, and we said coming in that they have some pretty good athletes at the skill positions. They just made some plays, and that’s going to happen.”
