Columbus East’s Bige Asher gets after New Albany’s quarterback Grady Mayfield Sept. 19 at Columbus East High School.
Tommy Walker | For the Republic
Bige Asher started out as a defensive player, but then made the transition to offense.
The Columbus East senior hopes his season can continue beyond Friday, with the Olympians having a tough task in traveling to Whiteland Friday for a Class 5A sectional semifinal contest.
The winner will move on to face either Franklin or East Central in the sectional final Nov. 7.
East has had its ups and downs all season and were injury-riddled in the middle of the season. Asher was one of those players battling a foot injury that caused him to miss the Week 8 win at Jeffersonville.
The Olympians have some momentum of their side by winning their past two games to close out the regular season 5-4.
“I think it’s the entire coaching staff getting us out here and having really good practices and making us work hard,” Asher said. “We have good team chemistry. We have a lot of guys come together.”
Bige Asher
Asher has played football since he was a freshman, and is a two-sport athletes for East. He plays on the baseball team in the spring and has committed to play baseball at Franklin College.
“For football, it keeps me active for baseball, and for baseball, it keeps me active for football,” he said.
In eight games this season, Asher has 40 total tackles, and he leads the team with six sacks defensively. He began playing offense in Week 6 and has five catches for 52 yards.
“He was another guy that was injured and missed a game. He battled a foot injury and really tried to gut it out for a couple weeks, then we just moved him to playing offense because it was making it a little bit hard for him defensively to be able with that many snaps, and also being able to flip sides and do all that kind of stuff on defense,” East coach Eddie Vogel said. “Early on for us, he was our leading sack guy. He’s a big guy. The guy is 6-foot, 5. He’s got a lot of God-given talent and size. Another thing is that he’s a great student, and he’s fit in really well. He’s grown up playing with these guys all the way through. We didn’t have him last year, but I’m excited he came back this year, and he’s been a big part of our team.”
The Olympians now will face a Whiteland team that is much tougher and has gotten better as the season has gone. The Warriors are 8-2 with their only losses to two 6A schools in Columbus North and Decatur Central.
“We have to stay locked in on defense and knowing our assignments and then moving the chains,” Asher said. “We’ve got to make good, solid tackles and everyone getting to the ball. We’ve got to cover up people on offense and get good blocks in. We’ve got to be able to run the ball.”
