Columbus East’s Caaden Gault, left, and Nate Anderson tackle Bloomington North’s Jarno Ksander-Hicks during East’s homecoming game against Bloomington North at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Sept. 30, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Although the Columbus East defense didn’t play bad, the Olympians struggled moving the football all night Friday.
East managed only eight first downs and had to punt 11 times. As a result, Bloomington North came away with a 24-7 victory, spoiling the Olympians’ homecoming.
“We weren’t able to move the ball much running-wise against their front, and then when they know you have to pass, they can do some things,” East coach Eddie Vogel said. “We just could never get anything going offensively. I really thought that first half, we might have had a chance to get some things going offensively, but we had such horrible field position, it was really tough to get anything going.”
The Olympians (3-4) were missing a pair of starting offensive linemen. Jamall Starks was injured in last week’s loss at Floyd Central, and Conrad Eggers went out with an injury in the first half Friday.
Still, East went into halftime tied 7-7.
After stopping the Cougars (4-3) the first four times they had the ball, the Olympians scored on their fourth possession. An 18-yard pass from Ethan Duncan to Chase Harrison set up a 30-yard touchdown run by Devon Tekulve.
Bloomington North tied it with 1:42 left in the first half on a 10-yard pass from Dash King to Cole Grupenhoff.
East got the ball to start the second half, but after an exchange of punts and another Olympians three-and-out, Bloomington North took the lead on a 29-yard field goal by Noah Nelson.
The next time the Cougars had it, Cody Mikulich went 28 yards for a touchdown. Then, King hit Mikulich over the middle for an 85-yard touchdown and a 24-7 lead.
Mikulich finished with 100 yards on 19 carries and 126 yards receiving on three catches. King was 14 for 30 for 182 yards and the two scores.
East’s Ethan Duncan went 13 of 26 for 71 yards. Tyler Weller ran for 42 yards on seven carries.
The Olympians are in a four-way tie for the Hoosier Hills Conference led and can with the title with wins the next two weeks.
“We talked in the huddle at the end of the game that we still kind of control our destiny,” Vogel said. “So we’re going to try to get healthy this week and fix some of those mistakes that we made tonight. Our mission is to win the conference championship. We really can kind of control what we do with Jeffersonville and with Bedford.”
BOXSCORE
Bloomington North;0;7;17;0;—;24
Columbus East;0;7;0;0;—;7
CE— Devon Tekulve 30 run (Nathaniel Hedrick kick), 8:51.
BN—Cole Grupenhoff 10 pass from Dash King (Noah Nelson kick), 1:42.
BN—Nelson 29 FG, 5:04.
BN—Cody Mikulich 28 run (Nelson kick), 2:22.
BN—Mikulich 85 pass from King (Nelson kick), :30.
Individual statistics
RUSHING — Bloomington North: Mikulich 19-100, Nolan Coy 9-20, King 9-11. Columbus East: Tyler Weller 7-42, Tekulve 1-30, Duncan 9-25, Javeon Smith 11-16, Caaden Gault 4-6.
PASSING — Bloomington North: King 14 for 30, 182 yards, 2 touchdowns, 0 interceptions. Columbus East: Duncan 13-26-71-0-0; Tommy Anderson 1-1-7-0-0.
RECEIVING — Bloomington North: Mikulich 3-126, Aidan Steinfeldt 4-21, Jarno Hicks 4-13, Grupenhoff 2-17, Tate Bless 1-5. Columbus East: Chase Zapfe 6-18, Jered Brooks 2-18, Chase Harrison 1-18, Mason Larrison 2-11, Nico Alvarez 2-8, Weller 1-5.
