A big part of Columbus East’s game plan for a comeback when it fell behind Center Grove early in Friday night’s sectional semifinal quickly went by the wayside.
With the Olympians trailing 14-0, senior quarterback Cole Gilley, who had missed the final game of the regular season with a knee injury, took a shot to the knee and had to leave the game. As a result, East couldn’t get much going offensively, and the Trojans went on to post a 31-7 victory.
“It was a big factor,” East coach Bob Gaddis said. “We thought coming in, we were going to have to run the ball enough to keep them honest and throw the football. I’m not sure what kind of a difference it would have made in the football game because they’re an awfully good football team, but I can tell you that it changed our game plan quite a bit. We couldn’t get the ball to some spots that we wanted to, and they were able to stop our running game quite a bit consistently, and we weren’t able to muster much offense after that.”
Gilley was injured in the second half of the Olympians’ Week 8 win at Seymour. He did not play in the final regular season game, and then Class 6A teams had a bye week last week.
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Gilley completed 4 of 5 passes for 27 yards in less than a quarter of action.
“Cole showed a lot of courage just playing,” Gaddis said. “A lot of people wouldn’t have played with his injury, and then he took that hit and went down. I hate it for him because he’s had two really good years for us, and you hate when a senior can’t play. When he got diagnosed with (the injury), most people the doctors told us would have been four to six weeks, and he came back and played in three. We were a little concerned he might take a shot on it, but he wanted to go, and our team wanted him to go, so he gave it a shot.”
The Trojans (5-5) took the opening kickoff and marched down the field before East stopped Center Grove on downs at the 3-yard line. But then the Olympians (7-3) were forced to punt, and Trent Veith weaved his way for a 42-yard return for a touchdown.
On the Olympians’ second possession, Gilley was intercepted by Jackson Schott, who returned it 18 yards for a score, and the Trojans led 14-0 with 4:12 left in the first quarter.
“I was really proud of our defense for getting a big stop there on fourth down,” Gaddis said. “We worked on punt coverage for two weeks, and the kid made a good play on it. Then they got the turnover for the touchdown. We’re down two touchdowns, and we really haven’t done anything bad except for those couple plays.”
Gilley went out on the next series after completing a pass to Dalton Back for a first down. Center Grove then managed a 22-yard field goal by Austin Watson to go up 17-0 early in the second quarter.
The Olympians looked like they might cut into the lead late in the first half when they drove to the Trojans 36. But after a sack, East was forced to punt, and Center Grove took over deep in its own territory. The Trojans then drove for a 22-yard touchdown by Daniel Weems with 6 seconds left in the first half to take a 24-0 lead.
“The only time I thought we didn’t give great effort was on their last touchdown before the half,” Gaddis said. “They kind of got one on us there that really hurt us. If we go in just down 17, we have a better chance, but we didn’t.”
Following a scoreless third quarter, Center Grove added to its lead on an 8-yard run by Lucas Hoffman to make it 31-0.
“They’re a really good offfense, and they run that Wing-T really well. They have big lineman, and they were bigger than us on both sides of the football. They ran the ball well. Our defense did play well enough to keep us in the game.”
But the Olympians didn’t quit. They recovered a fumble near midfield, and Mark McDonald ran 24 yards for a score with 2:20 remaining to avoid the shutout.
McDonald finished with 93 yards rushing on 17 carries. Parks carried 17 times for 41 yards and completed 2 of 7 passes for 10 yards.
“Our kids battled and hung in there,” Gaddis said. “We showed a little character in the second half.”
The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for East, which ran the table in the Hoosier Hills Conference following a 1-2 start.
“We had a lot of young kids playing, and sometimes you forget how young some of them are,” Gaddis said. “We got better as the year went on. We won the conference championship again. We could have thrown the towel in early there when we lost a couple early, but our kids battled through it. They’re going to look back and say we had a good football season. A lot of schools would love to be 7-3, and we’re just kind of spoiled around here.”
