SYRACUSE - Just when they should have been sweet, things turned sour for the Wawasee High School football team.
After grabbing an 18-6 lead with 1:29 remaining in the third quarter, the Warriors (6-4) began to self-destruct in a 19-18 Class 4A Sectional 11 loss to the Angola Hornets (9-1) in Syracuse Friday."Sectional football can be a great thing and it can also be absolutely gut-wrenching," Wawasee coach Tom Wogomon said.
After taking the 18-6 lead on senior quarterback Tyler Hare's second rushing touchdown of the game, Wawasee responded by allowing Angola to return the ball to its own 32-yard line. If that wasn't enough, the Warriors were also whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct on the play, moving the ball to the 17.
Despite giving up the good field position, Wawasee had the Hornets in a third-and-24, but was whistled for a late hit on Angola senior quarterback Alexx Bauer after he completed a 17-yard pass, resulting in an automatic first down. Three plays later, Bauer found junior Robby Boots for a five-yard score, drawing to within 18-13 with 11:55 remaining in the game.
"I feel like we made too many of those crucial mistakes when we shouldn't have made them," Wogomon said.
After committing just one penalty for five yards in the first half, Wawasee was whistled for eight infractions in the second half, tallying 70 yards. Of those penalties, six that went for 60 yards came after the team took the 18-6 lead.
"Those penalties came at bad times," Wogomon said.
And even with the penalties, Wawasee appeared ready to take the win after junior Jake Clark picked off a Bauer pass and returned it to the Angola 44 with just 3:53 left on the clock and his team in front 18-13.
The only problem was Angola had all three of its timeouts and forced a turnover on downs.
With just 2:25 left in the game and 70 yards ahead of him, Bauer sliced through the Warriors' defense, completing all four of his pass attempts for 49 yards, including a 12-yard touchdown strike to senior Seth Fifer with 58 seconds left.
"He is a heckuva quarterback," Wogomon said about Bauer, who finished the game 18 of 42 for 195 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. "He put the ball on the money and he had a great pocket presence. The kid trusted in his line and knew when to get rid of it."
When he had time, Fife was his main target, hauling in eight passes for 105 yards and the game-winning touchdown.
Angola entered the game averaging 42 points a game, but had trouble against a Wawasee defense that had been seasoned in Northern Lakes Conference play.
"Explosive offenses don't matter in the postseason," Angola coach Luke Amslutz. "In the postseason, you just need to come out and hit."
And the Hornets hit a little more than Wogomon expected.
"They played a physical football game," Wogomon said. "We thought we could establish more of an inside running game on them, but they had a nice game plan on stopping that."
In the opening half, Wawasee did establish the run, getting 111 yards on 25 carries. However, in the second half, the Warriors got just 62 yards on 20 rushes.
"We just had to shore up a couple of things," Amslutz said about halftime adjustments. "We didn't really change much. We just needed to do better at hitting our gaps and breakdown tackles."
Wawasee senior running back Trevor McKibben ran for 114 yards and a score on 24 carries, while Hare had 44 rushing yards and 145 passing yards on 10-of-17 passing. Senior Tommy Kehoe caught six passes for 101 yards.
While the season is over, Wawasee did win six games after winning just five in the previous three seasons combined.
"Our football team made big strides this year," Wogomon said. "This is going to hurt for a while."
Wogomon will also be saying good-bye to the group of players that were freshmen when he came to Wawasee.
"That's the thing I don't want to think about right now," he said. "It's going into next year without those faces, because for four years I've been here, those have been the people I've looked at. I've seen them grow and it's going to be awfully difficult to go into a season without them."
