Warriors Fall In Sectional Final To MinutemenDUNLAP — It wasn’t so much that Concord outplayed Wawasee for the Class 4A Sectional 11 championship Friday night in Dunlap, it was more a case of the Minutemen out big-playing the Warriors in the 24-10 win. Concord (10-2) scored touchdowns on a couple of long plays in the first half, the first being a 68-yard run by DuWhan Alford on the opening drive, then on a 25-yard reception by Adam Glanders from quarterback Trevor Wilmore midway through the second quarter. In the win, Alford rushed for 111 yards on just six carries before leaving the game with a knee injury in the first half. The Warrior defenders came up with several key stops to keep the game close. After Wawasee (7-5) lost a fumble deep in its own territory, Austin Lutz cut in front of a Wilmore pass inside the 20 for an interception. Twice the Warriors came up with three-and-outs when the Minutemen had excellent field position on the Warrior side of midfield. And Warriors offense moved the ball fairly well, but never crossed the Concord 30-yard line before the third quarter, as Wawasee had receivers open twice for big gains, but narrowly missed the connection needed to get on the scoreboard. “We talked at half – this was a game of big plays,’ Wawasee head coach Tom Wogomon said. “We moved the ball well but we couldn’t finish things off. “Quite frankly, when you’re playing for a championship, you have to make your own breaks, and we just didn’t make our own breaks at times.” Wawasee took advantage of a Concord turnover to get on the scoreboard. On his first play replacing Alford, Jerrell Poindexter failed to come up with an option pitch from Wilmore, and just before the ball went out of bounds in front of the Wawasee bench, the Warriors recovered it at the Minuteman 46. On the scoring drive, Derrick Sorensen and Gabe Rhodes carried the ball four times between them, and Rhodes caught a 21-yard pass from Gage Reinhard during the drive and Jordan Acton’s 30-yard field goal cut the Concord lead to 11. Poindexter atoned for his turnover by returning the ensuing kickoff to the Warrior 43, and three plays later the Minutemen had answered the Wawasee score with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Wilmore to Timothy Yoder. Arguably, Wawasee’s best chance to make a run at the win came on its next possession, down 21-3 in the third quarter. The Warriors drove 62 yards, including a 25-yard Sorensen run off a great fake by Reinhard into a blitzing Concord defense on fourth down. After driving the ball inside the one, Sorensen came up just short of the goal line on fourth down. “Both defenses came up with stops, that’s the way it should be in a championship game,” Concord head coach Tim Dawson said. “ Getting that stop at the goal line was big for us. Our defense played very well, and they had to for us to stop Wawasee. It’s the reason we’re playing next week rather than next year.” After a Concord field goal, increasing the lead to 24-3, Wawasee completed a 13-play, 76-yard touchdown drive which ended when Reinhard found Jordan Elliott from five yards out with just under four minutes left, cutting the lead to 24-10. When Concord recovered the ensuing onside kick, it became obvious the Warriors wouldn’t have enough time to complete a comeback. The 2012 Warriors started 2-4 before finishing 7-5, becoming just the third team in the 43-year history of the school to compete for a sectional title. After Wogomon’s first three teams managed just five wins, the last three squads have enjoyed a pair if five-game winning streaks and won 20 times. After the game, Wogomon reflected on the contribution of the senior class to the football program. “It hurts right now, but there’ll be a day when we wake up and look back at what this group of seniors had done, as far as us playing some competitive football,” he said. “If you can say one thing about them it’s that they battled. They’ve showed grit. We said this wasn’t going to be the same team they played seven weeks ago, and it wasn’t. And it was until the very end these kids played hard. It got to the point where the result was going to be in the books, but they played hard all the way through.”
CONCORD 24, WAWASEE 10 (Class 4A Sectional 11, C’ship) Wawasee 0 0 3 7 - 3 Concord 7 7 7 3 - 21 Wawasee Concord First downs 17 14 Rushing yards 161 193 Passing yards 118 160 Comp./Att./Int 13/28/1 12/26/1 Total offense 279 353 Fumbles/lost 1-0 2-1 Penalties/yards 4-38 8-87 First Quarter 6:42 Con- DuWhan Alford 68 run (Ryan Tepe kick), 7-0 Second Quarter 8:43 Con – Adam Glanders 25 pass from Trevor Wilmore (Tepe kick), 14-0 Third Quarter 4:14 Waw – Jordan Acton FG 30, 14-3 2:23 Con – Timothy Yoder 10 pass from Wilmore (Tepe Kick) Fourth Quarter 6:51 Con – Tepe FG 30 3:49 Waw – Jordan Elliott 5 pass from Gage Reinhard (Acton kick)
