SOUTH WHITLEY - Bryan Sprunger leaned on the chain-linked fence surrounding Whitko's football field, chatting and laughing with 15 to 20 fans.

The field was cleared, the stands empty, and Whitko's football coach was in an OK mood. He could thank his Wildcats for that - they beat Wawasee, a school they had not played in the last 15 years, 27-15 on Friday.

But when he handed out his thanks, he may have approached one player before the others: Jeremiah Laws.

As a split end, Laws isn't one of the showstoppers on Whitko's offense. That's OK, because as a defensive end, he saved the game and the win for Whitko.

After Whitko dominated the first half - Sprunger played second-stringers in the second quarter - the Wildcats almost let Wawasee back in the game the second half.

Whitko led 19-0 at halftime, but a Jeff Beer 34-yard pass to Brad Brown put the Warriors on the board at 19-7 with more than seven minutes to go in the third quarter.

At the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, the Warriors threatened again.

A 36-yard pass from Beer to Brown moved the Warriors down the field, and two plays into the fourth quarter, Wawasee's offense lined up at Whitko's one-yard line.

Then Beer fumbled. Beer recovered the football, but the Wildcats were on Whitko's six-yard line facing a third down with six yards to go.

That was when Laws changed the game.

Beer took the snap. Whitko quickly forced him out of the pocket. Beer scrambled, searching for an escape route.

He never found it. Laws chased after Beer, who went from bad to worse. Laws ran Beer down and sacked him for a 14-yard loss.

"If we put the ball in there in the fourth quarter and make it 19-14 or 19-15, we have a chance to come back," Wawasee coach Gene Mitz said.

Sprunger likes to say four or five big plays makes or breaks a football team.

Laws, he said, delivered one of them.

"That," Sprunger said, "was the big play of the game. The big play of the game. It was the turning point in the game."

Whitko throttled Wawasee in the first half, racking up 216 total yards to Wawasee's 11.

Some coaches put their reserves in the second half of blowouts.

Sprunger put his in early in the second quarter. Rather than Jimmy Linn and Bryan Rose, Sprunger's starting quarterback and halfback, he called on Ben Mohr and Ben Watson, his backup quarterback and halfback.

All they did was help put together a 17-play drive, capped by a 14-yard touchdown run by Mohr on an option play with 1:19 left in the first half. Whitko took a comfortable 19-0 lead into the second half.

"I told Ben on Monday, expect to play in the second quarter Friday," Sprunger said. "Ben's capable of running the show. He proved that."

The Warriors climbed back into the game the second half, thanks to adjustments. The Warriors went from their pro I offensive scheme to a full-house backfield. With three players in the backfield and the rest on the line, the Warriors stifled Whitko blitzes that worked well in the first half.

"We were quicker, but they were bigger," Sprunger said. "They closed their splits down and came out and pounded the football at us. They tried to wear us down, which they did."

The Warriors crawled back with their new formation by moving the ball and scoring in the third quarter, but the long arm of Laws stopped them in their tracks before they got too close.

Laws' play not only was big defensively, it was big offensively. He robbed the momentum from Wawasee and handed it back to Whitko's offense.

Whitko then scored on an 11-play drive, highlighted by an 18-yard run by Linn. Rose scored on a seven-yard run to put Whitko up 27-7 with 4:11 left in the fourth.

Beer connected with Brown on three passes for 65 yards as the Warriors motored down the field for their second touchdown. The score came on a 23-yard pass, and Luke Matz added the two-point conversion to make it 27-15 with 3:38.

Wawasee tried an on-sides kick. The Wildcats grabbed the ball then fumbled the ball. But Jeff Coble recovered it to save them and the win.

"I think we lost our focus," Sprunger said after nearly watching Wawasee threaten to make it a game. "Our conditioning is one thing. We played strong for a half, but we lost our focus the second half.

"The good part was we gathered ourselves when we needed to."

Wawasee, 0-1, hosts Carroll next Friday.

"We came to play in the third and fourth quarters," Mitz said. "We made some adjustments. We had field position. We had opportunities. We didn't capitalize.

"We were disappointed the first half. We didn't complete a pass. The second half, he threw the way he is capable of."

Whitko allowed only 39 rushing yards on 30 carries, but the Wildcats also allowed 142 passing yards, all in the second half.

"The thing is, we don't practice pass defense because we don't pass that much," Sprunger said. "But we'll work on it. We'll talk about it Sunday at the coaches meeting, I'm sure. We have some talented kids back there. A kid back there gets burnt, everybody knows it. A middle linebacker gets burnt, nobody knows it."

Whitko, 1-0, is at Columbia City.

"We have things to work on," Sprunger said, "but it's August 22nd, folks." [[In-content Ad]]