Football team completes perfect regular season with thrilling 50-49 victory over Indian Hill

"That was the best high school football game I've ever seen." - Tom Horn, Booster president

The Roundup can't say it any better, except to possibly add that it was the most exhausting game we've ever seen as well. 

It's always easy when you're on the losing side to say that it was a game that neither team should have lost, but that truly was the case Friday night. The score was tied at halftime and at the end of the third quarter.  We all know the final score was a one point difference.  Each team ran 66 plays. 

It's hard to know where to begin to describe a game like this.  My words won't come close to communicating the highs and lows.  However if I could pick one theme that I took away from the game, and even though it seems trite, it would be "don't give up."  Indian Hill played great.  We made a bunch of mistakes.  The wind was in our face.  And yet, down 49-42 with 2:42 left in the game and 80 yards to go, the offense started THE DRIVE by giving up two straight sacks!!!  So we're 3rd and 20 from our own 10.  Kyle Seyfried to Evan Aleshire for 14 yards.  Fourth and six.  Kyle to Harry Meisner for 13 yards and a first down. 

Three plays later we were fourth and eight from our own 39.  Kyle to Evan for 27 yards and a first down. 

Incomplete pass.  Kyle to Jonathan Tighe who makes a circus catch and goes out of bounds at the 3. 

Isiah Nearor runs for no gain in an effort to burn clock.  Then Kyle to Jacob Allsop (what's he doing on offense?) for a three yard TD and a one point deficit. 

Then it looked like Coach Barre was pointing to the far hash mark.  "We're going for two", I thought.  We were.  OHMYGOSH.  We run what the paper called a Statue of Liberty but what I think of as the Boise State variation thereof.  Kyle drops back to pass but instead hands to Isiah Nearor who goes around left end for a 50-49 lead.  Bedlam.  I half expected Isiah to propose to one of the cheerleaders.

A kickoff, an incomplete pass, students rush the field and a massive celebration.  Wow.

Isiah Nearor had 122 yards rushing and 3 TD's on 13 carries, including a 56 yard TD jaunt to begin the Cowboys' scoring.  He also had a pick on the defensive side.

Kyle Seyfried was 18 for 36 for 4 TD's a whopping 446 yards - that's almost 25 yards per completion (in a heavy wind).  On the receiving end of those passes were Evan Aleshire with 6 catches for 173 yards and 2 TD's (including a 54-yarder), Jonathan Tighe with 5 catches for 162 yards and 1 TD (and the catch that set up the winning TD), Harry Meisner with 3 catches for 31 yards, and Spencer Herbst with 1 catch for 53 yards and Chris Dolle with 1 catch for 25 yards.  Oh yeah, and Jacob Allsop had that one, rather important catch for three yards.

The win gives the team an outright CHL championship and a home game for the first round of the playoffs.

Congratulations to Coach Barre on his 299th win.

Finally - thanks to Travis Glendenning for providing the stats all year long.

Enquirer article here.

PHOTOGRAPHY:

There are a lot of great photos from last night, plus the ones I took.

First off, a gallery from Gary Landers of the Enquirer here.

Next, and thanks to Rob Edwards for pointing it out, a gallery from Wayne Litmer here.  MaxPreps insists that their photographers use flash so he does a really nice job of getting players' faces lit up.

Really cool - Channel 19's coverage here.  Thanks to Wendy Anderson for forwarding the link.  This is the first roundup link to video.

Channel 19's Prep Play of the Day here.

Channel 5 video here.  Thanks to Peter Tighe for the link.

Finally, my gallery here. Beware - it's 120 photos long so not for the faint of heart. I've followed my general policy of including bad pictures as long as they portray great plays (for instance Max Kadish breaking up a pass attempt and Isiah Nearor's interception return.)  But I've also included a number of series where I show mutliple pictures of one play (primarily receivers making catches).  And of course there are a number of photos of the celebration afterwards.

Next up: home playoff game Friday night at 7:30 PM.  Joe Eitel's unofficial site says that we'll be playing Eaton.