SYRACUSE — The 2012 high school football season was one of adjustments for Times-Union Coach of the Year Tom Wogomon. Having rebuilt the program after going 5-25 in his first three seasons at Wawasee, Wogomon’s Warriors went 13-7 in the next two. With things seemingly turned around, Wawasee sported a 2-4 record when Warsaw came to Syracuse to battle for the W Trophy. Going into the rivalry game, Wawasee was fresh off a 53-14 loss at Plymouth. As if that score didn’t seem bad enough, it was actually 40-14 at the half and the Rockies tallied 416 rushing yards to Wawasee’s 38. “That Plymouth game, they were just grinding our bones that game,” Wogomon said. “I was standing on the sidelines, thinking, ‘We’re taking an enormous step backwards to the days when I first got here.’” Instead of folding their tents, the Warriors went in the other direction, and it all began at that Tuesday’s practice. “It was a turning point we had in terms of our coaches challenging the kids that day,” Wogomon said of the practice going into the Warsaw game. “You have practices you look back on and see they were good or bad, but this was just one of those where we just felt like we began to turn the corner. We didn’t even know how good we were going to play, but we left the field and knew the kids still had fight in them. It was one of those challenging days. “We were going to challenge who wanted to be out there and who wanted to continue to play football to be successful or who was playing just to get through the season,” he added. “We walked off the field knowing the kids still had fight in them.” At 1-4 in the Northern Lakes Conference and hosting a Warsaw team that was 4-0 in the conference, not many gave Wawasee a chance. However, after the Warriors kept the Tigers out of the end zone on a fourth-and-2 play as time ran out in the first half, Wawasee had the momentum it needed. “It was the fourth-and-goal right before halftime,” Wogomon reminisced. “We make that stand right before halftime against Warsaw. We were able to go in with the lead, which we hadn’t been able to do much, and it was a different feel from our football team.” Wawasee went on to win the game 14-13 and went on to win its next four before the season came to a close with a 24-10 loss at Concord in the sectional championship game. “Some other people have asked when it happened, as far as the team getting back on track, and it was the senior class,” Wogomon said. “They were a great group. Their leadership and class throughout the whole thing was great. There was never a day the coaching staff gave them a game plan or a challenge, and they didn’t come out ready to work. They were seniors that did that. Nothing was met with resistance.” The seniors may not have given much resistance, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any from outside sources. Following a 35-7 loss to South Bend St. Joseph in the second game of the season, senior quarterback D.J. Semon was dismissed from the team. Semon ran an offense Wawasee had become familiar with – the option read. However, sophomore backup Gage Reinhard was more of a spread offense signal caller, forcing Wogomon to make a big adjustment early on. “That was probably the biggest challenge for us,” he said. “Understanding everything we did in the offseason was geared toward the option-read offense. Ever since I saw Gage play, I knew he was the future, there’s no doubt about it, but it wasn’t going to be the same as what we’d done in the past. “We really did a fundamental change in terms of what we decided to take out and put in for Gage,” he added. “We got rid of the tight end and were able to keep our two-back set and spread the defense as much as we could. Then we could let Gage read the defense.” With time, Reinhard began to blossom, going on to throw for 1,328 yards and 13 touchdowns, although he also threw 13 picks in his first season. Helping Reinhard was sophomore wide receiver Clayton Cook, who finished the year with 40 receptions for 782 yards and 11 touchdowns. Those two were keys to Wawasee’s success down the stretch and Wogomon credits experience with them getting their footing. “When you get to the back third of a season, the sophomores that have been playing on Friday nights really begin to start playing, not like the green beans they are,” he said. “So, the young kids that were playing really began to step up.” Another key to the turnaround was health. With injuries piling up early, the Warriors had to move players around, but by the time the Warsaw game came around, players returned and things began to click. “When you have an injury or two, you’re kind of forced to move some people around,” Wogomon said. “That was the case for us. A lot of those ended up being successful changes for us.” That success went beyond the regular season, as Wawasee’s 27-14 win at DeKalb was the program’s first sectional win since 2005 and Wogomon’s first. “That was getting a big monkey off our backs, as least for me,” Wogomon said. That postseason win was followed by a 31-28 victory at NorthWood, a team that beat Wawasee 35-21 in the regular season. “That NorthWood game was special,” Wogomon said. “That was probably one of the most exciting games I’ve been a part of in terms of just a good football game all the way across.” Up next was Concord, a team that thumped the Warriors 54-7 in the regular season. Knowing his team was up against a tough foe, Wogomon had a simple message for his guys. “We knew going up to Concord was going to be a huge challenge,” he said. “What we really pushed for that week was deciding we weren’t the same team that represented Wawasee when we got pasted 54-7. We really took ownership of that first game. We played with them. It was just a matter of us playing football. If we were going to get beat, we wanted them to physically beat us.” The Minutemen did get the win, but the effort was there from the Warriors. “You get down to a sectional championship game, it just comes down to a play here and there,” Wogomon said. “Watching it on tape, that’s exactly what happened.” Despite the loss, the Warriors had reached a game that seemed unreachable earlier in the season. But with some good coaching, Wawasee was there, and Wogomon hopes to be there again. “We’re excited about the future,” he said. “We have to get some linemen. Those guys aren’t necessarily born. They have to be created in the weight room. We just have to have a great offseason and it’s already started for us. I think the challenge for us now is to make sure we’re putting ourselves in the best position for 2013.”
